E 

383 

Be 


THE    CONDUCT 


OP 


THE     ADMINISTRATION 


REPRINTED    FROM 

THE  BOSTON  DAILY  ADVERTISER  AND  PATRIOT, 


BOSTON: 

STIMPSON    &    C-LAPP,    72    WASHINGTON    STREET 
J.  E.  Hinckley  &  Co.,  Printers,  14  Water  Street. 

1832. 


t 
b 


THE 


CONDUCT   OF   THE   ADMINISTRATION 


CHAPTER  I. 
INTRODUCTION. 

IN  less  than  two  months  from  this  time,  the  country  svill  pass 
through  an  important  political  crisis.  A  community  of  more 
than  twelve  million  souls  will  be  called  on  to  elect,  by  a  nearly 
universal  suffrage,  a  chief  Executive  Magistrate,  who  is  to  exer 
cise  over  them  most  of  the  powers  that  belong  in  other  countries 
to  the  office  of  an  hereditary  sovereign,  A  proceeding  of  this 
kind  is  entirely  without  parallel  in  the  previous  history  of  the 
world,  and  were  it  to  happen  in  some  remote  foreign  nation, 
would  be  justly  entitled  to  profound  and  anxious  attention,  as  a 
mere  experiment  in  the  science  of  civil  polity.  When  we  recol 
lect  that  this  great  and  curious  experiment  is  to  be  performed 
upon  the  living  body  politic  of  which  we  are  ourselves  members; 
that  the  fortunes  of  our  country,  and  with  them  our  own  and 
those  of  our  friends  and  families  are  involved  to  a  considerable 
extent,  in  its  results; — we  shall  perhaps  consider  it  not  unnatural 
to  suspend  for  a  few  moments  the  ordinary  routine  of  private 
business,  and  inquire  with  some  seriousness  into  the  nature  of  the 
duties  which  the  crisis  in  question  will  devolve  upon  us  as  elect 
ors  and  citizens. 

We  have  said  that  there  is  nothing  in  the  history  of  the  world 
at  all  parallel  to  this  singular  and  imposing  scene.  There  have 
been,  no  doubt,  and  still  are,  other  communities  organized  on  the 
principle  of  an  elective  chief  magistracy.  Such  was  the  case  with 
the  great  Republics  of  Rome  and  Carthage,  with  most  of  the 
democracies  of  ancient  Greece  and  modern  Italy,  with  Switzer 
land  and  Holland,  and  at  one  period  with  the  unfortunate  King 
dom  of  Poland.  But  in  all  these  countries  the  state  of  the  com- 


munity  and  the  form  under  which  the  elective  principle  was  ap 
plied,  were  so  totally  different  that  it  is  impossible  for  us  to  turn 
them  to  any  practical  account  as  precedents  :  the  case  is  entirely 
new. 

No  precise  parallel  to  it  can  be  found,  even  in  the  preceding 
elections  of  the  same  kind,  that  have  taken  place  among  ourselves. 
The  state  of  the  country  changes  so  rapidly  that  in  the  short 
space  of  four  years  new  forces  are  introduced  into  our  political 
machinery  of  which  it  is  impossible  to  calculate  beforehand  the 
operation  or  the  effects.  At  the  first  election  we  had  only  thir 
teen  States ;  we  have  now  four  and  twenty. — When  Mr.  Jeffer 
son  was  chosen  President  we  had  less  that  six  million  inhabitants; 
we,  have  now  by  the  census  more  than  twelve,  and  in  reality 
more  than  thirteen.  At  all  the  earlier  elections  our  largest  cities 
did  not  contain  more  than  twenty  or  thirty  thousand  inhabitants  ; 
they  now  contain  more  than  two  hundred  thousand,  and  have 
begun  to  assume  in  consequence  a  different  physiognomy,  and 
to  exercise  a  different  action  on  community.  Before  the  year 
1800,  the  West  was  a  vast  wilderness  ;  it  now  holds  the  balance 
of  political  power  among  the  States,  and  expects  at  no  distant 
day  to  sway  the  sceptre.  Since  the  last  election  it  has  received 
from  the  new  census  a  considerable  augmentation  of  strength. 
These  changes  and  various  others  hardly  less  important,  to  which 
we  cannot  even  allude,  have  materially  varied  the  political  as 
pect  of  the  country  from  one  election  to  another,  and  will  con 
tinue  to  render  them  all,  as  they  successfully  occur,  operations 
of  a  new  impression,  involving  elements  that  have  never  been  in 
action  before,  and  of  which  the  nature  and  effects  can  of  course 
be  foreseen  with  very  little  certainty. 

This  indisputable  fact  gives  an  additional  and  alarming  inter 
est  to  a  crisis  already  in  its  very  nature  sufficiently  important. — 
We  are  like  mariners  compelled  to  pass  through  a  dangerous 
channel,  where  the  sands  are  continually  shifting,  and  where  the 
charts  that  have  been  formed  upon  the  experience  of  former  voy 
ages  are  necessarily  more  or  less  incorrect.  Under  these  circum 
stances,  it  would  be  madness  to  indulge  in  a  false  security.  We 
must  be  on  the  alert,  and  keep  a  bright  look-out  for  breakers,  or 
we  shall  certainly  get  into  shoal  water. 

We  are  met,  however,  at  the  outset  by  the  objection,  that  it  is 
after  all  of  little  importance  what  individual  fills  the  office  of 
President.  One  person,  it  is  said,  will  go  through  the  routine  of 
this  place  about  as  well  as  another ;  or  if  there  be  a  difference, 
it  will  not  be  sufficiently  important  to  affect  in  any  way  the  great 
interests  of  the  country.  We  are  now  so  flourishing  and  pros 
perous  that  we  can  get  along  perfectly  well  under  any  chief 


magistrate,  and  it  is  not  worth  while  for  the  citizens  to  leave 
their  own  concerns  for  the  sake  of  interfering  in  an  election,  of 
which  the  result  is  necessarily  a  matter  of  indifference. 

Such  language,  though  employed  in  most  cases  as  a  cover 
for  selfishness,  indolence  or  disguised  Jacksonism,  is  occasionally 
heard  from  the  mouths  of  well-meaning  men.  No  error  can  be 
more  ruinous  in  a  government  like  ours,  the  very  existence  of 
which  depends  upon  the  constant  vigilance  of  the  people.  The 
administration  of  the  government  is  in  fact  the  great  concern  of 
the  community  and  of  all  its  members.  Upon  it  depend  the 
maintenance  of  the  public  peace — the  security  of  the  life,  prop 
erty  and  happiness  of  the  individual  citizen.  No  temporal  in 
terest  can  be  named  in  comparison  with  it  for  importance  and 
magnitude.  Education,  for  example,  which  is  often  and  justly 
represented  as  a  most  important  concern,  is  nevertheless  entirely 
secondary  and  subordinate  to  that  of  Government.  Education 
provides  for  the  improvement  of  a  future  generation  :  Govern 
ment  secures  the  existence  and  prosperous  condition  of  the  pre 
sent,  which  involves  of  course  those  of  all  that  are  to  follow. — 
Of  what  use  is  it  to  provide  accomplished  actors,  to  figure  some 
thirty  years  hence  on  the  great  theatre  of  society,  if  in  the  mean 
time,  by  the  effect  of  misgovernment,  the  edifice  itself  is  shaken 
to  its  basis  and  tumbles  in  fragments  about  our  ears  ?  Govern 
ment  therefore  is  the  great  and  paramount  concern.  Religion 
alone,  which  provides  for  the  wants  of  man  considered  as  an  im 
mortal  being,  is  of  more  importance  than  any  merely  temporal 
interest :  and  it  is  the  chief  practical  injunction  of  Religion  that 
we  are  not  to  wrap  ourselves  up  in  a  cold,  heartless,  exclusive 
attention  to  our  personal  affairs,  but  to  discharge  with  zeal,  in 
dustry,  vigilance  and  effect,  our  social  duties. 

In  periods  of  general  political  prosperity,  we  are  apt  to  under 
value  the  importance  of  Government,  and  to  neglect  the  cares 
and  duties  that  belong  to  it,  just  as  in  a  healthy  and  vigorous 
state  of  the  body  we  are  apt  to  underrate  the  importance  of  tem 
perance  and  exercise.  "  Why,"  says  the  vigorous  and  athletic 
youth,  "  should  I  trouble  myself  with  any  of  these  idle  restric 
tions  ?  I  have  an  excellent  constitution;  no  matter  what  I  do  : 
I  can  bear  any  thing."  Let  him  try  this  system,  for  two  or  three 
years — give  way  without  restraint  of  reflection  to  his  vicious  ap 
petites,  and  what  will  be  the  consequence  1  His  animal  func 
tions  are  all  disordered.  Disease  visits  him  in  twenty  loathsome 
shapes.  He  must  now  withdraw  his  attention  from  every  other 
occupation,  and  direct  it  entirely  to  the  vain  and  hopeless  labor 
of  attempting  to  recover  the  blessing,  which  he  undervalued  be 
fore,  and  which  he  has  now  lost  forever. 


Just  so  it  is  with  the  body  politic.  Every  thing  flourishes: — 
we  have  an  excellent  constitution  : — we  can  bear  any  thing  : — 
no  matter  who  is  President.  Thus  says  the  optimist:  and,  with 
out  even  taking  the  trouble  to  vote,  he  goes  on  quietly  increas 
ing  the  number  of  his  dollars.  In  the  mean  time,  the  agents  of 
evil  never  slumber,  and  the  helm  which  the  well-meaning  citizen 
is  too  indolent  to  grasp,  falls  into  the  hands  of  the  Hills,  the  Ken 
dalls  and  the  Lewises,  who  make  a  President  to  their  minds,  and 
then  make  themselves  Vice  Presidents  over  him,  under  the  style 
and  title  of  the  Kitchen  Cabinet.  Let  this  go  on  for  a  few  years 
and  what  follows? — Proscription — Confiscation — internal  dissen 
sion,  foreign  and  domestic  war.  The  optimist,  who  could  not 
afford  an  hour  or  a  dollar  for  the  public  affairs,  must  shell  out 
his  dollars  by  thousands,  and  pour  out  his  heart's  blood  to  the 
last  drop — for  what  1  In  the  hopeless  attempt  to  recover  the  po 
litical  well-being  which,  once  lost,  can  no  more  be  restored  than 
the  health  of  the  natural  body. 

Look  at  France.  When  was  there  ever  a  country  to  all  out 
ward  appearance  more  flourishing  and  prosperous,  than  the  king 
dom  of  France  on  the  1st  of  June,  1830?  The  King,  Charles 
X.,  who  was  then  sovereign  there  as  the  people  are  now  sove 
reign  in  this  country,  thought  that  he  could  do  any  thing,  and 
wisely  turned  out  a  very  competent  set  of  Ministers,  in  order  to 
introduce  another  under  his  natural  son,  Prince  Polignac.  Po- 
lignac,  conceiving  in  his  turn  that  in  so  prosperous  a  condition 
of  affairs  he  could  do  any  thing  without  danger,  amused  himself 
and  his  royal  master  by  repealing  the  liberty  of  the  press,  and 
the  right  of  suffrage.  What  followed  ?  Less  than  three  years 
have  since  elapsed.  Charles  X.  and  his  family  are  scattered  to 
the  four  winds — Polignac  and  his  associates  are  locked  up  in 
dungeons.  In  all  these  cases,  the  worthless  tools  by  whom  the 
mischief  has  been  done  are  the  first  victims ;  and  if  the  matter 
stopped  here  there  would  be  no  great  cause  for  regret.  But  this 
is  not  all.  France — Europe,  are  plunged  into  almost  hopeless 
confusion.  The  streets  of  Paris  have  been  repeatedly  the  theatre 
of  carnage,  and  are  now,  with  several  of  the  Departments,  under 
martial  law.  The  peaceful  pursuits  of  industry  are  all  suspended. 
War  has  broken  out  in  various  quarters  ;  and  every  sign  portends 
the  occurrence  of  another  of  those  general  convulsions  which 
destroy  in  a  great  measure  the  peace  and  happiness  of  the  civ 
ilized  world,  for  at  least  one  generation. 

Are  the  people  of  the  United  States  exempt  from  the  operation 
of  the  causes  which  determine  the  fortunes  of  men  and  nations 
in  other  parts  of  the  world  ?  No.  If  we  permit  our  most  im 
portant  affairs  to  be  managed  for  any  length  of  time  by  corrupt 


and  incompetent  persons,  we  shall  certainly  suffer  for  it.  This 
is  the  law  of  nature;  and  nothing  but  a  miraculous  intervention 
of  Providence,  which  is  never  vouchsafed  to  the  indolent  and 
careless,  can  save  us  from  its  operation.  If  we  madly  entrust 
the  command  of  our  grand  and  admirable  political  STEAM-BOAT, 
with  all  its  complicated  machinery,  to  a  set  of  ignorant,  passion 
ate,  reckless  officers,  whose  chief  recommendation  is  a  talent  for 
railing  and  swearing,  we  may  possibly  make  one  or  two  trips 
without  accident,  but  at  no  distant  time  the  EXPLOSION 
MUST  COME.  The  wretches  whose  presumption  and  folly 
will  have  occasioned  it,  if  it  do  happen,  will  be  first  blown 
to  atoms;  but  with  them  will  also  perish  the  splendid  bark,  the 
troops  of  passengers,  and  the  high  hopes  of  political  improve 
ment  throughout  the  world,  that  have  so  long  been  connected 
with  the  fortunes  of  the  star-spangled  banner  of  Western  Liberty. 

Far  from  being  powerless,  the  President  of  the  United  States 
is  the  most  effective  and  important,  as  he  is  the  highest  in  dig 
nity  of  our  political  functionaries.  It  is  he  who  gives  in  the  last 
resort,  the  impulse  to  almost  every  movement  of  the  political 
machine.  The  mischiefs  which  have  already  resulted  from  the 
maladministration  of  the  present  incumbent  in  that  office,  are 
but  too  apparent;  and  he  must  be  a  bold  man,  who,  after  a  care 
ful  and  dispassionate  survey  of  our  present  political  condition, 
will  undertake  to  say  with  any  assurance,  that  the  constitution 
of  the  country  would  hold  out  four  years  longer  under  the  same 
management.  For  ourselves,  though  not  habitually  of  a  despond 
ing  disposition,  though  generally  rather  apt  to  indulge  in  favor 
able  views  of  the  future,  we  are  compelled  to  express  our  decided 
conviction,  that  the  re-election  of  Jackson  for  another  term, 
would  be  fatal  to  the  Union. 

The  crisis  we  are  approaching,  is,  therefore,  deeply  interest 
ing.  It  brings  with  it  high  responsibilities,  and  solemn  duties. — 
It  becomes  us  to  reflect  maturely  beforehand  upon  the  course 
we  shall  take,  and  not  lightly,  or  from  any  merely  party  or  per 
sonal  prejudice,  cast  a  vote,  which  may  have  so  material  an  in 
fluence  on  the  public  welfare. 

The  partisans  of  Gen.  Jackson  have  proposed  him  as  a  can 
didate  for  re-election.  That  he  should  have  given  his  consent 
to  this — that  he  should  even  have  almost  publicly  solicited  a 
nomination  after  all  his  previous  protestations  of  a  contrary  char 
acter,  is  one  among  a  great  number  of  gross  inconsistencies, 
which  prove  but  too  plainly  his  want  of  any  fixed  principles  of 
conduct.  Since,  however,  he  has  consented  to  come  before  the 
public  a  second  time,  and  is  seriously  held  up  by  a  large,  if  not 
respectable,  party,  it  becomes  necessary  to  examine  his  preten- 


8 

sions,  and  to  survey  the  course  of  his  administration,  which,  for 
the  honor  of  the  country,  it  would  be  much  more  agreeable  to 
consign  at  once  to  oblivion.  We  propose,  accordingly,  in  sev 
eral  following  papers,  to  consider  successively, 

1.  The  qualifications  of  Gen.  Jackson  for  the  Chief  Magistracy 
of  the  Union. 

2.  The   means  by  which  he  rose  to  that  high  dignity  at  the 
last  election — and 

3.  The  manner  in  which  he  has  discharged  his  duties  as  Pre 
sident,  during  the  current  term. 

It  will  appear,  from  the  result  of  our  inquiries,  that  he  is  utterly 
disqualified  for  the  place,  and  that  it  is  the  bounden  duty  of  every 
patriotic  citizen  to  lay  aside  all  minor  considerations,  and  join 
heart  and  hand  in  the  great  and  generous  effort  which  is  now 
making  in  all  quarters  to  defeat  his  re-election. 


CHAPTER  II. 

CHARACTER    OF    JACKSON.— MEANS    BY  WHICH    HE  WAS 
ELECTED. 

WE  propose,  in  the  present  chapter,  to  consider  the  qualifica 
tions  of  General  Jackson  for  the  Presidency  of  the  United  States, 
and  the  means  by  which  he  was  elevated  to  that  office  at  the  last 
election. 

General  Jackson — before  his  nomination  as  a  candidate  for 
the  Presidency — was  known  to  the  public  as  a  daring,  reckless 
and  successful  military  commander.  In  his  campaigns  against 
the  British  and  the  Indians,  he  had  repeatedly  set  at  defiance 
the  letter  and  spirit  of  the  Constitution,  the  received  maxims  of 
public  law,  and  the  common  feelings  of  humanity.  The  people 
had  been  rather  disposed,  in  consideration  of  the  substantial 
benefits  which  had  accrued  to  the  country  from  his  military 
operations,  to  attribute  these  excesses  to  impulse  and  igno 
rance,  rather  than  to  a  deliberate  design  to  do  wrong;  but, 
taken  in  connexion  with  the  known  violence  and  rudeness  of 
his  private  life,  they  served  distinctly  to  characterize  the  man. 
In  civil  and  political  affairs,  he  had  shown — though  often  placed 
in  conspicuous  positions — an  absolute  nullity.  We  allude  to 
his  private  qualities  no  farther,  than  to  say,  that  he  was  entirely 
destitute  of  the  ordinary  accomplishments  of  a  well-bred  gentle 
man,  and  incapable  of  writing  a  common  English  letter  with 
tolerable  correctness. 


That  such  a  person  was  wholly  unfit  for  the  office  of  President 
of  the  United  States,  is  a  proposition  too  plain  to  admit  of  ar 
gument.  But  this  is  not  enough.  We  may  safely  go  much 
farther,  and  say  with  perfect  truth,  that  of  all  the  citizens  in  any 
way  known  to  the  public,  General  Jackson  was  the  only  one, 
whose  election  might  fairly  be  regarded  as  dangerous,  and  whom 
it  was  particularly  expedient  not  to  place  in  the  President's 
chair.  There  was  undoubtedly  a  choice  among  the  prominent 
men  of  the  country,  some  of  whom  would  probably  have  transact 
ed  the  business  more  acceptably  than  others  ;  but  no  other 
candidate  could  have  been  mentioned,  of  whom  it  would  not  have 
been  said  at  once  that  his  election — whether  expedient  or  not — 
was  at  least  not  dangerous.  Of  General  Jackson  this  could  not 
be  said.  The  elevation  to  power  of  a  bold,  able,  and  unprinci 
pled  "Military  Chieftain"  has  been  uniformly  fatal  to  the  con 
stitution  of  every  free  State  in  which  it  has  occurred.  If  we  have 
not  already  found  our  Cromwell,  we  owe  it  to  the  winter  on 
General  Jackson's  head,  and  not  to  his  moderation  or  our  own 
prudence.  At  the  preceding  election  by  the  House  of  Repre 
sentatives,  Mr.  Clay,  with  his  usual  clear  and  strong  sense,  had 
perfectly  apprehended  the  nature  of  the  case,  and  stated  it  dis 
tinctly  in  his  letter  to  Judge  Brooke.  He  did  not  choose  to 
commit  the  guardianship  of  our  civil  institutions  to  a  daring  and 
reckless  soldier.  For  this  exercise — we  will  not  say  of  patriot 
ism  or  sagacity — but  of  ordinary  common  sense,  he  was  brand 
ed  by  the  partisans  of  Jackson  with  corruption.  It  was  appar 
ent  at  the  time  to  every  one,  not  absolutely  blinded  by  party 
prejudice,  that  any  other  course  than  the  one  he  took  would 
indeed  have  argued  corruption,  and  that  of  the  grossest  char 
acter. 

General  Jackson  was  therefore  not  only  destitute  of  all  the 
qualifications  and  accomplishments  necessary  for  the  place,  but 
was,  by  particular  circumstances,  positively  disqualified  for  it  ; — 
was  in  fact,  as  we  have  said,  the  only  man  in  the  country  whose 
elevation  would  be  actually  dangerous,  and  whom  it  was  there 
fore  particularly  expedient  not  to  place  in  the  Presidency.  By 
what  fatality  then  did  it  happen,  that  this  most  enlightened  and 
thinking  people  should  have  fixed  precisely  upon  him  as  the 
most  proper  person  for  the  office?  The  fact  must  undoubtedly 
be  attributed  in  part  to  the  sort  of  caprice  which  sometimes  pre 
vails  in  popular,  as  well  as  in  arbitrary  governments.  King  De- 
mus,  like  other  sovereigns,  has  his  moments  of  wantonness, 
in  which  he  plays  tricks  as  fantastic  and  as  mischievous  as  any  of 
theirs.  The  result  in  question  was  however  mainly  owing  to  the 
intrigues  of  artful  men,  who  found  it  convenient  to  employ 
2 


10 

General  Jackson's  military  reputation  as  a  machine  for  advanc 
ing  their  own  selfish  projects. 

The  General  was  first  presented  to  the  public  as  a  candidate, 
by  the  local  feeling  of  his  own  State.  With  this  we  find  no 
fault,  and  are  rather  disposed  to  regret  that  there  is  not  more  of 
a  similar  spirit  in  some  other  quarters,  where  it  would  probably 
be  applied  with  more  judgment  and  better  effect.  The  adhesion 
of  Pennsylvania  was  the  first  event,  that  gave  any  importance  to 
the  nomination  which,  till  then,  had  been  looked  upon  as  a  sort 
of  bad  joke.  By  what  influence  Pennsylvania,  previously  pledg 
ed  to  Mr.  Calhoun,  was  induced  to  take  this  somerset,  is,  we 
believe,  even  now  not  very  distinctly  known.  It  was  certainly 
not  done  at  the  instance  of  Mr.  Calhoun,  who  was  as  much  sur 
prised  as  all  the  rest  of  the  world,  when  he  first  learned  the  fact 
through  the  newspapers.  Whatever  may  have  led  to  it,  it  was 
certainly  the  first  thing  which  gave  to  Jackson  the  least  impor 
tance  as  a  candidate. — For  this  timely  declaration  in  his  favor, 
and  for  her  subsequent  steady  adhesion  to  his  cause,  the  Gene 
ral  is  now  showing  his  gratitude  to  Pennsylvania  by  striking  a 
death-blow  at  her  most  valuable  institutions,  and  her  favorite 
schemes  of  policy. 

The  nomination  having  thus  acquired  a  title  to  attention,  was 
encouraged  in  some  of  the  Southern  States,  more  with  a  view 
of  effecting  a  diversion  of  votes  from  other  candidates  than  from 
a  real  wish  for  the  General's  success.  In  this  way,  however,  he 
was  brought  into  the  House  of  Representatives  as  the  candidate 
having  the  highest  number  of  votes.  To  pretend  that  the  House 
were  for  this  reason  bound  to  elect  him  President,  is  of  course 
absurd.  If  the  Constitution  intended  that  the  candidate  having 
the  highest  number  of  votes  should  of  course  be  President,  why 
did  not  the  Constitution  say,  that  a  plurality,  and  not  a  majority 
of  votes,  should  decide  the  election?  It  is  really  wonderful,  that 
a  statesman  so  distinguished  as  Mr.  Calhoun  should  publicly 
commit  himself  to  an  opinion  so  clearly  and  palpably  untenable. 
The  House  were  obviously  at  full  liberty  to  select  from  the  three 
candidates  the  one  whom  they  preferred. — Mr.  Crawford  was 
disqualified  by  the  state  of  his  health,  and  the  choice  really  lay 
between  Mr.  Adams  and  General  Jackson  : — that  is,  between 
the  only  man  in  the  country,  whom  it  was  on  every  account  par 
ticularly  expedient  not  to  make  President,  and  one  of  those  citi 
zens,  who  were  on  every  account  best  qualified, — were  his  pri 
vate  manners  a  little  more  gracious,  perhaps  we  might  say  with 
justice,  the  one,  who  of  all  the  citizens,  was  best  qualified, — for 
this  great  office.  It  did  not  require  all  the  lofty  genius,  far- 
sighted  sagacity,  and  wide  expanse  of  views,  that  belong  to  Mr. 


11 

Clay,  to  decide  such  a  question.  Any  man  of  common  sense 
and  common  integrity  would  have  settled  it  in  ten  minutes,  as 
he  did.  The  people  were  fully  satisfied  with  the  decision. 
The  administration  of  Mr.  Adams  more  than  justified  the  expec- 
tationt  *f  his  warmest  friends ;  and  if  the  voice  of  inveterate 
local  prejudice  and  personal  ambition  could  have  been  stifled, 
and  the  real  public  opinion  of  the  country  been  allowed  to  de 
clare  itself,  he  would  have  been  re-elected  President,  four  years 
after,  without  a  dissenting  vote. 

This,  however,  was  not  to  be  expected.  Poor  human  nature 
is  the  same  at  all  times  and  in  all  countries,  and  on  this  occasion 
we  saw  an  exhibition  of  some  of  her  least  attractive  features. 
Before  the  new  administration  had  commenced  operations,  it 
was  openly  declared,  by  the  fanatical  partisans  of  the  Military 
Chieftain,  that  they  should  be  put  down  were  they  as  pure  as 
the  angels  in  heaven.  Perceiving  that  a  desperate  struggle 
would  be  made  for  Jackson  by  this  blind  and  reckless  faction, 
the  Apolitical  leaders  who  aimed  to  succeed  Mr.  Adams  in  the 
presidency  thought  it  safer  to  attach  their  fortunes  to  Jackson, 
whom  they  supposed  to  possess  a  great  personal  popularity, 
than  to  Mr.  Adams,  who  as  an  Eastern  man,  and  his  father's 
son,  was  likely  to  encounter  the  strong  and  deeply-rooted  preju 
dices  of  a  large  section  of  the  country. — Under  this  persuasion, 
Mr.  Van  Buren,  who  had  previously  acted  as  the  chief  manager 
of  the  Crawford  party,  and  Mr.  Calhoun,  then  strong  at  the 
South  in  his  high  station  and  the  great  talents  of  himself  and  his 
partisans,  if  not  in  a  wide  reach  of  territorial  influence,  sunk  for 
a  time  their  conflicting  personal  pretensions,  and  formed  a  com 
bination  to  defeat  the  re-election  of  Mr.  Adams,  and  to  bring  in 
General  Jackson  as  his  successor. 

When  we  compare  the  respective  pretensions  of  these  two 
persons,  and  recollect  that  their  characters  were  perfectly  well 
known  to  the  men  most  active  in  forming  this  combination,  we 
are  compelled  to  say  that  we  doubt  whether  the  history  of  the 
world  furnishes  an  example  of  a  more  unprincipled  and  corrupt 
intrigue.  It  is  painful — it  is  mortifying — it  degrades  our  view 
of  human  nature,  to  think  that  such  men  as  Mr.  Van  Buren,  and 
especially  Mr.  Calhoun,  whom  we  look  upon  as  personally  in 
every  respect  a  much  superior  man  to  the  other, — should  have 
engaged  in  it.  Both  will  find  to  their  cost  that  a  plain,  manly, 
upright  policy  would  have  served  their  purpose  much  better. 
Had  Mr.  Calhoun  pursued  such  a  course  from  the  first,  we  have 
reason  to  believe  that  he  would  have  been  appointed  secretary 
of  state  by  Mr.  Adams.  In  that  case  he  would  have  followed 
Mr.  Clay  in  the  Presidency. — His  prospects  are  now  completely 


12 

desperate,  and  he  has  nothing  to  depend  upon  for  his  future  con 
sequence  but  the  "  sad  cure,"  such  as  it  is,  of  Nullification. 
The  loss  of  such  a  man  is  a  public  misfortune.  Van  Buren — 
but  of  this  man,  his  character  and  his  prospects,  we  shall  speak 
hereafter. 

The  combination  thus  formed  effected  its  object  by  means  not 
less  corrupt  and  unprincipled,  than  the  views  in  which  it  had 
its  origin.  The  wisest  measures  were  met  in  the  halls  of  Con 
gress  by  a  bitterness  and  virulence  of  opposition  which  contrasts 
singularly  enough  with  the  easy  acquiescence  in  the  same 
quarter  in  the  open  violations  of  the  Constitution  and  laws  by 
the  present  Executive.  But  the  great  organ  was  the  Press ; 
and  the  means  employed  through  the  Press  to  undermine  the 
administration  were  chiefly  of  two  kinds — FALSE  PRE 
TENCES  and  PERSONAL  SLANDER. 

1.  FALSE  PRETENCES.— The  adherents  of  Jackson  as 
sumed  for  themselves  the  exclusive  title  of  the  Republican  Party, 
and  denounced  the  administration  as  Federalists  arid  aristocrats. 
By  continually  harping  upon  this  string,  they  probably  did  more  to 
shake  the  confidence  of  the  people  than  in  any  other  way.  They 
knew  perfectly  well  that  the  assertion  was  false.  The  Fed 
eralists  had  ceased,  since  the  war,  to  act  as  a  party.  The  five 
gentlemen  who  had  appeared  as  candidates  at  the  preceding  elec 
tion,  Messrs.  Adams,  Jackson,  Crawford,  Clay  and  Calhoun,  were 
all  connected  with  the  Republican  party,  and  had  enjoyed  its 
confidence  for  years.  There  was  no  Federal  party  nor  Federal 
candidate  in  the  country.  The  assertion  was  therefore  grossly 
false  :  in  the  mouths  of  those  who  made  it  was  not  merely  false 
but  BASE  and  MEAN.  When  the  Republican  administration  were 
struggling  with  almost  insuperable  difficulties,  Mr.  Adams  had 
given  them  the  weight  of  his  name,  talents,  and  influence.  He 
had  done  more  than  any  individual  in  the  country  to  help  them 
honorably  out  of  the  war.  In  taking  this  course,  he  had  incurred 
a  good  deal  of  ill-will  with  former  political  friends  whom  he  had 
been  obliged  to  oppose.  To  those  who  retained  the  feelings 
and  prejudices  of  the  old  Federal  party  there  was  not  a  man  in 
the  country  so  obnoxious  as  Mr.  Adams.  Such  was  the  person 
whom  Republican  editors,  after  receiving  the  benefit  of  his  co 
operation  and  services  in  the  most  difficult  times,  did  not  scruple 
to  denounce  as  an  opponent.  It  would  be  vain  to  expect  any 
great  generosity  of  feeling  from  the  common  herd  of  partisan 
politicians ;  but  ingratitude  for  benefits  received  is  after  all  one 
of  the  basest  and  blackest  traits  that  can  disgrace  the  human 
character.  Ingratum  si  dixeris,  omnia  dicis. 

False,  base,  and  mean  as  it  was,  the  pretence  did  more,  as  we 


13 

have  said,  than  any  other  single  cause  to  shake  the  confidence 
of  the  people.  When  urged  by  the  leading  Republican  papers, 
as  it  was  in  some  of  the  stales,  particularly  in  New  Hampshire 
and  Maine,  it  had  an  appearance  of  plausibility,  and  produced 
effect.  The  other  great  instrument  employed  by  the  party,  hardly 
less  effectual  and  certainly  not  more  honorable  than  the  one  that 
we  have  mentioned,  was 

2.  PERSONAL  SLANDER.— Slander  is  undoubtedly  one 
of  the  crying  sins  of  this  nation.     Next  to  intemperance  in  the 
use  of  liquor,  it  may  be  looked  upon  as  our  chief  national  vice. 
The  toleration   of  it  to  the   extent  to  which   it   is  carried,  is 
the  darkest  shade  in  the  present  state  of  civilization  among  us, 
although   it   is    one    that    has    escaped   the    attention   of  the 
wiseacres,  male  and  female,  who  annually  come  from  Europe 
to  spy  out  the  nakedness  of  our  land.     It  will  be  absolutely  ne 
cessary,  before  long,  that  well-meaning  citizens  should  form  a 
general  combination  throughout  the  country  for  the  suppression 
of  this  odious  vice — like  that  which  has  been   formed  with  so 
much  success  for  the  suppression  of  intemperance ;  if  we  mean 
to  escape  the  severe  judgments  that  Providence  inflicts  upon  us, 
as  a  punishment  for  it,  in  the  elevation  of  corrupt  and  wicked 
rulers.     The  extent  to  which  it  was  carried  by  the  Jackson  party 
during  the  administration  of  Mr.  Adams,  is  almost  incredible. 
From  the  General  himself,  who  did  not  scruple  to  join  in  the 
charge  of  corruption  against  his  competitor — the  man  whom  he 
had   emphatically  described   as  a  friend  in   need — the  man  to 
whom  he  had  been  indebted,  at  the  most  critical  periods  of  his 
career,  for  more  than  life — from  General   Jackson  himself,  down 
to  the  meanest  village  editor  that  barked  in  his  train,  the  uni 
versal  staple  of  attack  was  personal  slander.     To  draw  out  the 
falsehoods  that  were  then  circulated  from  the  oblivion  to  which 
they  have  long  been  consigned,  would  on  every  account  be  worse 
than  useless.     One,  however,  deserves  to  be  remembered  for  its 
uncommon  atrocity,  and  stamped  as  a  perpetual  brand  upon  the 
forehead  of  its  guilty  and  infamous  author.     The  President  of 
the  United  States,  a  man  remarkable  for  the  purity  of  his  life 
and  conversation,   and   his  lady,  a  matron  of  spotless  character, 
the  father  and  mother  of  a  virtuous  family,  were  publicly  charged 
in  print  by  a  vile  pamphleteer,  with  having  made  their  home, 
while   abroad,  a  scene  of  prostitution.     Did  the  party  disavow 
this  disgusting  calumny  1    Did  they  expel  the  unmanly  author 
of  it  from  their  ranks,  fix  a  note  of  infamy  upon   him,   and  set 
him  adrift,  to  wander  about  like  Cain,  a  marked  man  upon  the 
face  of  the  earth  ?     Far  from  it.     After  the  outrage  had  been 
fully  exposed  on  the  floor  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  Gen- 


14 

eral  Jackson  nominated  the  foul  calumniator  to  a  lucrative  and 
honorable  post  in  the  executive  department  of  the  Government. 
When  the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  to  their  everlasting  honor, 
rejected,  by  an  almost  unanimous  vote,  the  disgraceful  nomina 
tion,  the  party  at  home  took  up  the  slanderer,  and  made  him, 
as  if  in  mockery,  a  member  of  the  body  that  had  just  set  upon 
him  the  seal  of  deserved  reprobation.  There  he  still  remains — 
a  monument  of  the  utter  political  degradation  of  the  state  of 
New  Hampshire. 

Such  were  the  means  by  which  the  election  of  Gen.  Jackson 
was  brought  about,  and  such  were  his  qualifications  for  the 
Chief  Magistracy  of  the  Union.  The  course  of  his  administra 
tion  corresponded  entirely  with  the  expectations  which,  under 
such  circumstances,  would  naturally  have  been  formed  of  it,  as 
will  amply  appear  in  the  following  chapters. 


CHAPTER  III. 

FORMATION  OF  THE  CABINET, 

WE  have  seen,  in  the  preceding  chapter,  that  General  Jackson 
was,  and  is,  utterly  disqualified  by  his  personal  character  and 
previous  military  career  for  the  office  of  President  : — that  his 
election  was  the  result  of  the  intrigues  of  political  leaders,  who 
employed  his  popularity  as  a  machine  for  the  advancement  of 
their  own  selfish  projects  ;  and  that  the  means  by  which  it  was 
effected  were  chiefly  FALSE  PRETENCES  and  PERSONAL  SLAN 
DER.  We  propose  to  treat  in  the  present  article,  of  the  manner 
in  which  he  constituted  his  Cabinet. 

The  General's  total  incapacity  to  discharge  the  duties  apper 
taining  to  the  Presidency  was  hardly  denied  even  by  his  own 
partisans  ;  but  in  order  to  evade  the  objection,  they  asserted 
that  he  would  compose  an  able  Cabinet : — that  he  would  select 
for  the  heads  of  the  several  departments,  men  in  whom  the  na 
tion  might  place  confidence,  and  that  these  would  do  perfectly 
well  the  business  which,  it  was  admitted,  the  General  could  not 
do  himself.  This  plan  was  quite  an  innovation,  and  certainly  no 
improvement  upon  preceding  modes  of  administering  the  Gov 
ernment  ;  but  when  it  was  found  that  Jackson  was  actually  elect 
ed,  the  friends  of  the  country  thought  there  was  some  reason  to 
hope  and  expect,  that  the  promise  thus  held  out  of  an  able  Cabi 
net  would  be  realised.  The  ability  of  the  Cabinet  would  have 


15 

furnished  no  adequate  compensation  for  the  incapacity  of  the 
Chief  Magistrate,  upon  whom  the  responsibility  for  the  Executive 
Department  rests;  but  it  was  at  least  desirable  that  there  should 
be  capacity  somewhere,  and  if  it  were  wanting  in  the  head,  it  was 
imperiously  necessary  that  it  should  be  found  in  the  members. 

Never  were  hopes  and  expectations  more  completely  disap 
pointed.  It  seemed  as  if  the  new  President,  in  constituting  his 
Cabinet,  and  in  making  all  his  other  appointments,  had  adopted 
the  principle  which  the  People  had  acted  on  in  electing  him  ; 
that  of  taking  the  least  competent  man  whom  they  could  find. 
The  individuals  among  his  own  friends,  in  whose  character  and 
talents  the  people  felt  any  confidence,  were  studiously  passed 
over,  and  the  offices  were  given,  either  to  persons  who  were  too 
insignificant  to  have  attracted  any  attention,  or  who  were  known 
merely  as  violent  political  partisans.  Such  was  the  case  at 
Washington — in  this  city — and,  as  far  as  we  are  informed, 
throughout  the  country. 

The  Jackson  party  consisted  at  that  time  of  three  principal 
sections  or  elements : — the  General's  personal  adherents,  the 
political  friends  of  Mr.  Calhoun,  and  those  of  Mr.  Van  Buren. 
Each  of  these  sections  comprehended  gentlemen  of  merited  dis 
tinction,  who  had  been  drawn,  by  some  strange  fatality,  into  the 
support  of  Jackson,  but  whose  names  would  have  given  respec 
tability  to  the  new  Cabinet,  and  commanded,  to  a  certain  extent, 
the  public  confidence.  Such  were  among  the  General's  personal 
adherents,  Messrs.  Livingston,  White  and  Grundy  :  among  the 
friends  of  Mr.  Calhoun,  Messrs.  Hayne,  McDuffie,  and  Hamil 
ton  :  among  those  of  Mr.  Van  Buren,  Mr.  Tazewell,  Gov.  Dick 
inson,  Mr.  McLane,'and  Mr.  Forsyth.  All  these  were  men  of 
known  ability,  and  enjoyed,  though  in  very  different  degrees,  a 
certain  share  of  the  public  esteem.  The  Calhoun  men  were  the 
most  eminent  of  the  whole,  and  until  they  had  destroyed  their 
reputation  for  judgment  and  patriotism  by  the  miserable  farce  of 
nullification,  composed  as  brilliant  a  cluster  of  statesmen  as 
could  be  found  in  any  one  of  the  states.  It  was  understood,  that 
Mr.  Van  Buren  was  to  be  Secretary  of  State.  The  purists,  who 
had  felt  so  much  horror  at  the  corrupt  bargain  between  Messrs. 
Adams  and  Clay,  hardly  denied  that  such  was  the  previous  ar 
rangement.  But  it  was  confidently  expected  that  the  friends  of 
Mr.  Calhoun  and  of  the  General  himself  would  be  represented  in 
the  Cabinet  by  some  of  the  distinguished  gentlemen  enumerated 
above.  What  was  the  astonishment  and  dismay  of  all  good  men, 
when  it  was  announced  before  the  inauguration,  that  the  Cabinet 
was  to  consist,  beside  Mr.  Van  Buren,of  Messrs.  Ingham,  Branch, 
and  Eaton,  and  that  Postmaster-General  McLean,  a  Jackson 


16 

man,  was  to  give  way  to  Mr.  Barry !  The  only  drop  of  comfort 
in  the  new  arrangement  was  the  appointment  of  Mr.  Berrien, 
who,  though  infected  with  all  sorts  of  political  heresies,  is  an 
able,  and  personally,  respectable  man. — But  Mr.  Berrien  was 
only  Attorney  General,  and  was  not  a  member  of  the  Cabinet  ; 
which  was  composed  of  Messrs.  Van  Buren,  Ingham,  Branch, 
Eaton,  and  Barry.  Such  was  the  construction  of  the  able  Cabinet, 
which  was  to  make  up,  by  its  acknowledged  capacity,  for  the  ac 
knowledged  want  of  capacity  in  the  head  of  the  government,  and 
which  the  Richmond  Enquirer,  who  is  fond  of  a  joke,  does  not 
hesitate  to  describe  as  the  ablest  that  had  existed  in  the  country 
since  the  first  of  General  Washington. 

In  representing  Messrs.  Ingharn  and  Branch  as  not  at  that 
time  possessing  the  public  confidence,  we  mean  no  particular 
disparagement  to  their  characters.  They  were  almost  wholly 
unknown  to  the  people.  They  afterwards  exhibited — especially 
Mr.  Ingham — more  ability  than  the  public  had  expected  from 
them,  and  their  conduct  on  the  change  of  administration,  some 
what  raised  them  in  the  general  estimation.  Major  Eaton  is,  we 
believe,  personally  not  an  obnoxious  man.  He  is  represented  as 
essentially  a  weak,  simple-hearted,  good-humored  creature,  not 
without  some  notions  of  honor  and  courtesy,  and,  like  Mr.  Van 
Buren,  ambitious  of  no  other  glory  than  that  of  having  merited 
the  esteem  and  confidence  of  Gen.  Jackson.  But  that  any  one 
should  have  dreamed  of  him  as  a  constituent  member  of  an  able 
Cabinet  ; — a  Cabinet  which  was  to  make  good  the  deficiencies  of 
the  chief,  and  equal  or  surpass  the  fame  of  the  first  Washington 
administration, — this  is  indeed  rather  singular.  Thomas  Jeffer 
son  and  Alexander  Hamilton — whatever  the  Richmond  Enquirer 
may  think  of  it — knew  how  to  write  and  spell,  and  had  a  very 
good  notion  of  English  grammar. 

When  it  was  first  announced  at  Washington  that  the  Cabinet 
would  be  constituted  in  this  manner,  a  friend  of  Mr.  Adams, 
meeting  by  accident  a  prominent  Calhoun  man,  expressed  his 
wonder  that  the  party  should  have  acquiesced  in  such  an  arrange 
ment.  Sir,  replied  the  other,  I  wish  to  inform  you  ihat  we  know 
as  little  of  what  is  doing  at  the  Wigivam  as  you  do.  Gen.  Jack 
son  was  then  lodged  at  the  Indian  Queen  tavern.  The  public 
have  since  been  informed  by  Gov.  Hamilton,  that  the  General 
about  this  time  told  him,  that  he  should  have  given  him  the  place 
of  Secretary  of  War,  had  not  his  course  in  regard  to  the  Tariff 
and  Nullification  rendered  him  unpopular  throughout  the  country. 
A  superficial  glance  at  the  state  of  parties  as  they  then  existed  is 
sufficient,  with  the  aid  of  the  developments  that  have  since  taken 
place,  to  make  it  apparent  under  what  influence  the  able  Cabinet 


17 

was  organised  :  why,  and  on  what  pretences,  the  prominent  Cal- 
houri  men  were  studiously  excluded  from  it  ;  and  why  it  was 
composed  of  Martin  Van  Buren  and  four  other  gentlemen,  who, 
if  they  knew  little  of  reading,  writing  and  English  grammar, 
were  supposed  to  be  accomplished  in  the  art  of  cyphering;  a  sup 
position  which  experience  has  not  so  fully  confirmed,  as  the 
leading  unit  probably  expected. 

The  only  object  of  the  arrangement,  in  all  its  parts,  was  to 
promote  the  selfish  views  of  Martin  Van  Buren  : — whose  mean 
soul  could  see  nothing  in  the  election  of  General  Jackson  but 
the  victory  of  one  party  over  another — nothing  in  the  great  af 
fairs  of  the  Government  but  the  SPOILS  to  be  distributed 
among  the  conquerors ;  and  whose  first  exploit  was  to  jockey 
his  confederates  out  of  their  share  of  these  same  spoils,  and  ap 
propriate  it  to  himself.  Mr.  Van  Buren  is,  more  than  any  other 
individual,  responsible  to  the  world  and  to  posterity  for  the  deep 
disgrace  that  has  been  attached  to  the  national  character  by  the 
elevation  of  General  Jackson  to  the  office  of  President;  and  is 
almost  exclusively  responsible  for  the,  if  possible,  still  deeper  de 
gradation  that  has  resulted  from  the  acts  of  his  administration.  It 
is  a  fine  example  of  what  is  sometimes  called  poetical  justice, 
that  is,  the  early  occurrence  of  the  disastrous  consequences, 
which,  sooner  or  later,  generally  attend  on  tortuous  conduct, 
that  this  individual,  after  apparently  realising  all  the  objects  he 
was  aiming  at,  should  have  found  them  perishing,  is  it  were,  in 
his  grasp  : — have  been  compelled,  bitterly  against  his  will,  though 
ostensibly  by  his  own  voluntary  act,  to  quit  the  head  of  the  de 
partment  of  State  ;  have  been  rejected  by  the  Senate  as  a  for 
eign  Minister — under  the  circumstances,  the  strongest  politi 
cal  censure  that  has  ever  been  inflicted  upon  any  citizen  in  this 
country  : — and  finally,  have  been  held  up,  as  if  in  mockery,  for 
the  Vice  Presidency,  only  to  be  spurned  at  with  one  accord  by 
the  People.  We  said,  in  a  former  chapter,  that  we  should  speak 
particularly  of  this  person,  his  character  and  his  prospects.  The 
present  seems  to  be  the  proper  opportunity. 

Possessed  of  considerable  talents,  but  without  the  advantage 
of  education,  Mr.  Van  Buren  rose  from  the  lowest  walks  of  life 
to  a  place  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States.  Had  he  shewn 
in  this  dignified  station  something  of  the  generosity  of  feeling 
that  so  naturally  belongs  to  it,  the  public  would  have  given  him 
credit  for  his  success,  without  looking  too  narrowly  into  the 
means  by  which  he  had  obtained  it.  But  no  sooner  had  he 
reached  the  Senate  than  we  found  him  endeavoring  to  carry 
into  the  general  politics  of  the  country  the  disingenuous  arts 
which  he  had  practised  so  long  on  the  smaller  theatre  of  New 
3 


18 

York.  The  election  of  1824  was  approaching.  The  Federal 
party  had  disappeared,  and  several  candidates  were  presented 
to  the  people,  all  belonging  to  the  Republican  party,  recom 
mended  respectively  by  different  sections  of  the  country  and  by 
various  descriptions  of  public  service.  Unwilling  to  permit  the 
public  voice  to  declare  itself  freely  for  the  most  worthy,  3Vlr.  Van 
Bureri  attempted  to  revive  the  old  party  machinery  in  favor  of 
the  one  whom  he  thought  proper  to  support,  and  having  pro 
cured  his  nomination  by  fifty  or  sixty  members  of  Congress, 
declared,  through  the  papers  under  his  influence,  that  the  per 
sons  who  nominated  him  were  THE  democratic  members  of  Con 
gress! — Mr.  Crawford,  THE  democratic  candidate,  and  his 
friends  THE  DEMOCRATIC  PARTY.  Why  Mr.  Crawford — an 
original  Federalist,  and  of  all  the  candidates  the  one  who  had  the 
least  personal  pretensions,  was  fixed  upon  as  THE  Republican 
candidate — is  not  apparent.  Probably  he  was  the  only  one 
whom  Mr.  Van  Buren  could  at  that  time  approach  for  the  pur 
pose  of  personal  arrangement. 

In  this  way,  and  for  this  purpose,  commenced  the  system  of 
False  Pretences,  which,  as  we  have  mentioned  in  a  preceding 
chapter,  has  since  been  employed  in  favor  of  Jackson.  What  a 
miserable  spirit  a  man  must  have,  to  denounce  falsely  as  enemies 
his  own  political  friends — men  with  whom  he  had  been  acting 
for  years,  and  from  whom  he  had  received  the  most  important 
services — merely  to  promote  his  own  selfish  views  !  Such  was  the 
conduct  of  Martin  Van  Buren  in  regard  to  Mr.  Adams,  and  even 
Gen.  Jackson,  who  though  since  and  now  declared  by  him  to  be 
ihe  democratic  candidate,  was  at  that  time  falsely  denounced  as  a 
Federalist. 

This  attempt  to  play  off  the  New  York  machinery  upon  the 
great  Theatre  of  the  Union,  did  not  succeed.  Mr.  Van  Buren 
will  ultimately  find  to  his  cost,  that  the  people  of  the  United 
States  are  not  to  be  moved  like  puppets,  by  the  mere  drawing  of 
a  set  of  party  wires.  Even  when  they  go  wrong,  it  will  gene 
rally  be  found  that  they  act  under  some  strong  and  generous  im 
pulse,  like  that,  for  example,  which  was  made  upon  their  minds 
by  the  military  services  of  General  Jackson.  Defeated  in  the 
effort  to  elevate  Mr.  Crawford,  and  incapable  of  pursuing  the 
manly  and  straight-forward  course  of  supporting  the  administra 
tion  of  Mr.  Adams  until  he  should  have  done  something  to  de 
serve  opposition,  Mr.  Van  Buren  began  to  calculate  in  what  way 
he  could  best  promote  his  own  projects  of  further  advancement; 
and  conceiving  that  it  would  be  his  safest  course  to  connect 
himself  with  the  supposed  popularity  of  Jackson,  joined  in  the 
combination  we  have  already  described. 


19 

Does  any  one  suppose  that  Mr.  Van  Buren  really  believed 
the  claims  of  Gen.  Jackson  superior  to  those  of  Mr.  Adams? 
To  bring  the  two  men  for  a  moment  into  comparison  would  be 
worse  than  mockery.  On  this  head  there  was  no  mistake.  Mr. 
Van  Buren  perfectly  well  knew  that  Gen.  Jackson  was  not  only 
utterly  incompetent  to  the  place,  but  that  his  elevation  would  be 
in  a  high  degree  dangerous — that  it  would  certainly  disgrace  and 
might  very  possibly  ruin  the  country.  But  of  what  consequence 
was  it  that  the  country  was  certainly  disgraced  and  possibly  ruined, 
provided  that  Martin  Van  Buren  could  take  a  step  forward  in 
political  life  ?  New  York — the  Empire  State — which  had  just 
elected  him  to  the  highest  office  in  her  gift,  and  was  unhappily  at 
that  time  much  under  his  influence,  was  thrown  into  the  scale 
of  Jackson.  This  time  the  plot  succeeded,  and  Van  Buren,  to 
reward  him  for  the  share  which  he  had  in  it,  was  placed  in  the 
Department  of  State. 

Throughout  these  proceedings  we  see  distinctly  the  character 
of  the  man  : — a  narrow,  sordid,  selfish  spirit,  pursuing  little  ends 
by  little  means  :  no  loftiness  of  purpose  :  no  power,  depth  or 
reach  of  mind:  no  generosity  of  feeling:  no  principle:  of  course, 
no  faith  in  the  existence  of  any  such  qualities  in  others.  He 
enterson  the  high  and  sacred  concerns  of  Government  in  the  same 
temper,  in  which  as  a  village  lawyer  he  sat  down  to  play  Jill 
Fours  at  the  ale-house,  and  is  just  as  ready  to  employ  any  trick 
that  will  increase  his  share  of  the  SPOILS  OF  VICTORY. 
This  celebrated  phrase — the  most  unblushing  avowal  of  infamy 
that  was  ever  made  by  a  public  man — characterizes  completely 
Mr.  Van  Buren  and  his  party.  Such  a  man  can  never  be  popu 
lar  in  this  or  any  other  country.  The  people  may  at  times  be 
deceived  by  false  representations  of  facts  and  superficial  traits 
of  character  ;  but  they  detest  meanness,  and  will  never  perma 
nently  attach  their  confidence  to  any  man,  who  has  not  about 
him  some  great  and  generous  qualities. 

So  much  for  Mr.  Van  Buren.  Mr.  Calhoun  is  a  person  of 
another  stamp.  Much  as  we  regret  the  aberration  of  judgment 
and  feeling,  (to  himself  a  fatal  one,)  which  led  him  to  support 
Gen.  Jackson ; — much  as  we  deplore  his  connexion  with  the 
mad  project  of  nullification, — we  are  yet  bound  to  acknowledge 
— and  we  do  it  with  pleasure — his  vast  superiority,  intellectual, 
moral  and  political,  over  his  Kinderhook  competitor.  Mr.  Cal 
houn  is  a  man  of  commanding  talents,  upright  purpose,  and  a 
generous  disposition.  Few  gentlemen  have  ever  made  a  more 
brilliant  debut  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  or  displayed 
more  efficiency  and  dignity  in  an  executive  department.  His 
fault  is  excessive  ambition,  or  rather  a  feverish  impatience  to 


20 

grasp  the  fruit  which  at  the  proper  season  would  naturally  drop 
into  his  hands.  This  has  led  him  into  great  errors,  but  it  is  the 
defect  of  a  noble  and  manly  character.  At  the  time  when  Gen. 
Jackson  came  into  office,  Mr.  Calhoun  enjoyed  a  very  general 
popularity,  excepting  perhaps  in  New  England,  where  he  was 
once  much  respected,  but  where  his  treatment  of  Mr.  Adams  had 
given  offence.  Had  Jackson  administered  the  Government 
with  moderate  discretion,  he  would  probably  have  been  re-elected, 
and  in  that  case  Mr.  Calhoun  would  have  followed  in  the  Presi 
dency. 

Van  Buren  of  course  could  not  venture  to  encounter  such  a 
man  on  the  broad  and  open  theatre  of  public  favor.  In  order  to 
supplant  him,  he  resorted  to  his  usual  system  of  intrigue.  In 
composing  the  Administration,  he  took  care  to  exclude  the  great 
Calhoun  leaders,  under  the  pretence  that  their  opinions  on 
Nullification  had  rendered  them  unpopular.  With  the  same 
general  purpose  and  that  he  might  keep  the  game  entirely  in  his 
own  hands,  he  excluded  the  prominent  men  among  the  Presi 
dent's  personal  friends,  and  gave  them,  as  a  representative  in 
the  Cabinet,  Major  Eaton  !  1 1 

Such  is  the  history  of  the  constitution  of  the  able  Cabinet, 
The  blow  which  was  thus  aimed  at  the  influence  of  Mr.  Cal 
houn,  was  followed  up  by  others  which  have  since  most  signally 
recoiled  upon  their  author,  and  to  which  we  shall  advert  here 
after. — We  shall  proceed,  in  our  next  chapter>  to  examine  the 
course  of  the  Administration,  beginning  with  the  policy  of  Pro 
scription. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

PROSCRIPTION. 

THE  election  of  General  Jackson  was  a  most  perilous  experi 
ment,  which  the  people,  in  a  moment  of  wantonness,  had  tried 
upon  the  strength  of  their  political  constitution.  There  was 
however,  a  bare  chance  that  the  crisis  might  turn  out  somewhat 
less  serious  than  the  friends  of  the  country  generally  feared.  A 
considerable  portion  of  the  public,  including  Mr.  Adams  and  his 
immediate  personal  friends,  had  considered  Gen.  Jackson  as  a 
rude,  unlettered,  and  violent,  but,  on  the  whole,  well-meaning 
man.  In  a  letter  addressed  several  years  before  to  President 
Monroe,  he  had  exhibited  a  very  correct  notion  of  the  general 


21 

principles  upon  which  the  Government  ought  to  be  administered; 
and,  in  particular,  had  deprecated  the  indulgence  of  partisan 
preferences  in  appointments.  If,  conscious  of  his  own  incapaci 
ty  to  carry  on  the  Government,  and  aware,  as  he  had  shown 
himself  to  be,  of  the  true  principles  to  be  observed  in  the  selec 
tion  of  public  agents,  he  had  acted  on  these  with  but  a  moderate 
degree  of  consistency  and  good  faith,  his  election  would  have 
been  attended  with  little  or  no  public  inconvenience.  This  was 
hoped  by  good  men,  and  it  did  not  appear  entirely  Utopian  to 
suppose,  that  a  President  would  show  some  little  regard  to  rules 
of  conduct,  .publicly  laid  down  by  himself,  in  the  most  emphatic 
and  unequivocal  terms. 

The  greater  probability  undoubtedly  was,  that  his  complete 
and  avowed  incapacity  for  civil  affairs  would  throw  him  under 
the  influence  of  the  political  intriguers  who  were  employing  his 
name  and  popularity  to  advance  their  own  projects;  and  that 
these,  with  the  aid  of  the  President's  official  responsibility  be 
tween  them  and  the  public,  might  be  even  less  scrupulous  in 
their  proceedings  than  they  would  have  been  had  they  been  acting 
in  their  own  name. 

Such  has,  in  fact,  been  the  case.  We  have  seen,  in  the  pre 
ceding  chapter,  that  the  Cabinet  was  constituted  in  such  a  man 
ner,  as  to  place  the  entire  direction  of  the  public  affairs  in  the 
hands  of  Mr.  Van  Buren.  The  new  Grand  Vizier  signalized 
the  opening  of  his  administration  by  introducing — for  the  first 
time,  we  believe,  in  the  history  of  civilized  nations — the  princi 
ple  of  the  UNIVERSAL  PROSCRIPTION  of  the  public  agents,  high 
and  low,  who  were  not  attached  to  the  party  which  had  obtained 
the  majority.  Had  Jackson  himself  exercised  any  influence  in  the 
Government,  we  incline  to  think  that  he  would  have  shrunk 
from  so  barefaced  an  abandonment  of  his  own  avowed  princi 
ples.  Had  Van  Buren  been  acting  in  his  own  name,  we  doubt 
whether  he  would  have  ventured  upon  the  responsibility  of  a  mea 
sure  so  desperate.  But  conceiving,  probably,  that  by  acting  under 
the  General's  mask,  he  should  escape  in  part  from  this  respon 
sibility,  and  enjoy  the  advantage  of  a  distribution  of  the  SPOILS 
among  his  followers  with  less  risk,  he  took  the  plunge — which 
is  likely,  in  its  consequences,  to  occasion  the  political  ruin  of  him 
self  and  his  master.  The  lists  were  made  up,  and  the  victims 
brought  to  the  sacrifice,  with  an  indiscriminate  ferocity  that 
made  no  inquiries  respecting  age,  character,  connexions,  or 
condition,  and  would  have  done  honor  to  the  satellites  of  Domi- 
tian  or  Nero. 

The  extent  to  which  this  system  of  cold-blooded  massacre — 
for  it  deserves  no  other  name — was  carried,  has  been  often 


22 

stated,  but  cannot  be  made  too  familiar,  and  should  be 
constantly  held  up  to  the  public  view  and  the  public  de 
testation,  until  the  ingredients  of  the  poisoned  chalice  have 
been  returned — as  they  will  be  within  a  few  months — to 
the  lips  of  those  who  administered  them.  The  number  of 
the  victims  is  distinctly  indicated  by  the  appalling  fact,  that 
within  one  month  after  the  inauguration  of  Jackson  there  were 
more  removals  from  office  than  had  taken  place  since  the  organi 
zation  of  the  Government.  No  superiority  of  qualifications — no 
length  of  service — no  excellence  of  character  or  interest  of  per 
sonal  position  constituted  a  ground  for  excepticn.  At  the  mo 
ment  when  the  gratitude  of  the  Nation  for  the  services  of  the 
Army  of  the  Revolution  had  led  Congress  to  the  adoption  of 
the  extraordinary  measure  of  a  pension  law,  several  of  the  vete 
ran  survivors  of  the  struggle  were  rudely  thrust  by  the  Execu 
tive  out  of  the  offices  in  which  the  justice  of  his  predecessors 
had  placed  them,  and  left  on  the  confines  of  the  grave,  to  strug 
gle  with  actual  poverty.  Posterity,  when  they  read  the  account 
of  the  passage  of  the  Pension  Law,  and  the  encomiums  upon  the 
characters  and  services  of  the  Revolutionary  Patriots  that  fill 
the  columns  of  our  pamphlets  and  newspapers,  will  hardly  be 
lieve  that  at  the  same  period  the  President  denounced  as  a  pub 
lic  enemy  the  venerable  survivor  of  the  Tea  Party,  and  distribu 
ted  his  SPOILS  among  his  own  retainers. 

Nothing  could  arrest  the  progress  of  this  mischief.  Mr.  Mc 
Lean,  then  Postmaster-General,  attempted  to  make  a  stand  for 
his  department;  but  was  compelled,  though  a  Jackson-man,  to 
quit  it  himself :  hundreds  of  Postmasters  were  sacrificed  at  a 
blow;  and  this  vast  system  which  was  constructed  for  the  dif 
fusion  of  knowledge  and  just  principles  among  the  People,  be 
came  at  once,  as  it  has  been  ever  since,  and  is  now,  an  engine 
of  corruption.  The  manner  in  which  the  operation  was  conduct 
ed  was,  if  possible,  still  more  offensive  than  the  thing  itself. 
The  seat  of  Government  became  the  scene  of  a  disgusting  per 
sonal  scramble  among  thousands  and  tens  of  thousands  of  appli 
cants,  who  had  come  up  from  all  quarters  of  the  Union  to  get 
their  share  of  the  SPOILS,  as  the  carrion  crows  assemble  round 
a  carcass.  The  President  himself  forgot  all  regard  for  his  own 
dignity  and  the  ordinary  rules  of  civility  in  his  intercourse  with 
the  public  servants,  who  had  committed  the  heinous  crime  of 
receiving  an  appointment  from  one  of  his  predecessors.  In 
some  cases,  he  treated  them  with  the  grossest  rudeness  in  his 
own  house,  and  in  others  violated,  without  scruple,  his  own  posi 
tive  engagements  that  they  should  not  be  removed. 

All  this  was  bad  enough.     It  even  constituted,  as  Mr.  Madi 
son  has  correctly  stated  in  the  Federalist — a  good  ground  for 


23 

impeachment.  The  President  has  the  constitutional  right  to 
remove  the  persons  who  hold  their  offices  at  his  pleasure,  but  in 
this,  as  in  every  other  case,  he  is  bound  to  exercise  his  consti 
tutional  power  in  such  a  manner  as,  to  the  best  of  his  know 
ledge  and  belief,  will  be  most  conducive  to  the  public  good.  If 
he  act  from  corrupt  motives,  though  within  the  pale  of  the  Con 
stitution,  he  is  impeachable,  and  to  remove  or  appoint  a  public 
agent  merely  on  party  grounds  is  just  as  criminal  as  to  remove 
or  appoint  him  for  a  consideration  in  money. t 

But  even  this,  bad  as  it  was,  was  not  the  worst.  The  party 
felt  that  it  was  necessary  to  put  some  color  upon  this  hitherto 
unprecedented  proceeding,  and  in  order  to  justify  themselves  to  the 
People,  they  resorted  to  the  infamous  expedient  of  SLANDER. 
Not  content  with  depriving  hundreds  of  the  ablest  and  most  merito 
rious  public  agents  of  their  means  of  subsistence,  the  President 
attempted  to  blast  their  characters  by  throwing  out  against  them, 
in  his  Inaugural  Address,  the  vague  and  sweeping  charge  of 
corruption.  What  would  have  been  thought,  if  the  President 
had  publicly  declared  that  commissions  in  the  Army  and  Navy 
had  fallen  into  corrupt  hands,  and  had  followed  up  this  declara 
tion  by  the  removal  of  two  or  three  hundred  of  our  ablest  and 
most  distinguished  military  and  naval  officers,  without  giving 
them  the  opportunity  of  a  hearing,  or  even  knowing  the  offences 
that  were  imputed  to  them  ?  Is  the  reputation  of  those  who 
serve  the  public  in  a  civil  capacity,  less  dear  to  them,  less  sacred 
in  itself,  than  that  of  the  officers  of  the  Army  and  Navy  ?  Are 
they  to  be  publicly  denounced  by  the  President  as  corrupt,  and 
punished  accordingly,  without  a  hearing,  or  even  a  specification 
of  the  charge?  If  such  proceedings  are  to  be  ultimately  sanc 
tioned  by  the  public  approbation,  it  is  plain  that  the  public  ser 
vice  must  be  abandoned  by  every  citizen  who  values  or  re 
spects  his  own  character,  and  become  what  the  party  avowedly 
wish  to  make  it — a  prize  for  which  the  reckless  and  the  profli 
gate  are  to  gamble,  fight  arid  bully. 

Attempts  were  even  made  in  some  instances  to  fasten  this 
vague  charge  of  corruption  upon  individuals.  Mr.  Noursc,  a 
clerk  in  one  of  the  departments  at  Washington,  was  not  only 
rudely  thrust  out  of  his  place  at  the  age  of  more  than  eighty,  and 
after  a  long  life  devoted  to  the  public  service,  but  actually  had 
his  furniture  seized  under  a  Treasury  warrant  of  distress  upon 
a  false  charge  of  peculation,  at  a  time  when,  as  appears  by  a  sub 
sequent  decision  of  the  competent  tribunal,  the  United  States  owed 
him  more  than  twelve  thousand  dollars!  This  single  act,  could 
it  be  fairly  made  known  to  the  mass  of  the  people,  ought  to  and 
would  raise  such  a  general  burst  of  indignation  as  would  at  once 


24 

send  back  the  unfeeling  tyrant  who  dared  to  commit  it  to  his 
Hermitage.  The  case  of  Fillebrown  was  exactly  similar.  In 
that  of  Bradley,  the  public  accounts  were  altered  in  the  Post 
Office,  for  the  sake  of  fastening  upon  a  removed  officer  the  re 
sponsibility  for  acts  done  by  his  successor. 

The  ordinary  forms  of  decorous  language  contain  no  epithets 
appropriate  to  such  proceedings.  To  say  that  they  were  vio 
lent,  unjust  and  cruel,  and  at  the  same  time  revoltingly  mean 
and  base,  conveys  but  a  very  inadequate  impression  of  the  unut 
terable  disgust  with  which  they  must  be  contemplated  by  every 
manly,  patriotic  and  honorable  mind.  The  party  themselves 
became,  after  a  while,  ashamed  of  the  charge  of  corruption;  and 
in  the  manifesto  which  followed  the  Inaugural  Address,  under 
the  title  of  the  President's  First  Message  to  Congress,  they 
quitted  this  ground  and  resorted  to  the  stale  sophistry  of  Rota 
tion  in  Office.  It  was  now  intimated  that  the  possession  of  of 
fice  had  a  bad  effect  upon  the  character  of  the  possessor  ;  that 
the  public  lost  more  by  this  result  than  they  gained  by  his  ex 
perience  ;  that  it  was  therefore  expedient  that  all  the  public 
functionaries  should  be  changed  as  often  as  once  in  three  or 
four  years ;  and  especially  and  above  all,  that  the  President 
should  never  hold  his  office  more  than  one  term.  As  to  the 
functionary  himself,  it  was  said  that  he  had  no  claim  to  employ 
ment,  or  right  to  complain  if  he  were  removed.  He  sought  the 
public  service  with  a  view  to  his  own  interest  only,  and  when 
the  public  had  received  all  the  benefit  which  he  was  able  to 
bestow  upon  them,  they  had  a  perfect  right  to  set  him  adrift — 
when  they  had  squeezed  the  orange,  they  were  quite  at  liberty  to 
throw  away  the  peel. 

Such  was  the  manner  in  which  the  President  in  his  first  mes 
sage  to  Congress,  justified  the  system  of  proscription.  What  a 
noble  and  generous  creed  to  be  openly  promulgated,  and  made 
the  basis  of  public  action,  by  the  Chief  Magistrate  of  the  great 
Republic  of  the  Western  world  !  On  this  system,  Washington 
had  no  other  motive  for  taking  the  command  of  the  army  of  the 
revolution,  but  to  cover  his  personal  expenses ;  for,  as  is  well 
known,  he  refused  all  pay.  Adarns,  Jay,  and  Franklin,  were 
amply  remunerated  by  their  country  for  the  gift  of  freedom,  in 
dependence,  and  national  being,  when  they  had  drawn  for  their 
salaries  as  Ministers  Plenipotentiary.  Such  was  not  the  feel 
ing  of  Charles  Carroll,  of  Carrollton,  when  he  put  at  risk  half 
a  million  of  dollars  with  a  dash  of  his  pen  ;  and  if  such  is  in  future 
to  be  the  standard  of  political  morality  among  us,  it  is  to  be  fear 
ed  that  the  last  of  the  signers,  old  as  he  is,  may  yet  live  to  see 
the  sacred  instrument  which  received  that  signature,  torn  up  and 


25 

trampled  under  foot  like  a  worthless  piece  of  waste  paper. 
We  will  not,  however,  so  far  insult  the  good  sense  and  patriotic 
feelings  of  our  countrymen,  as  to  attempt  to  refute  this  shallow 
and  odious  sophistry.  It  carries  distinctly  on  its  face  the  cer 
tificate  of  its  origin,  and  however  false  in  a  general  application 
to  the  honorable  and  high  spirited  people  of  the  United  States, 
is  probably  a  very  true  description  of  the  case  of  Mr.  Van  Bu- 
ren.  It  is  well  observed  by  Dr.  Johnson,  that  a  person  who  ac 
cuses  all  men  of  acting  from  corrupt  motives,  convicts  at  least 
one.  As  Mr.  Van  Buren  tells  us  that  the  citizens  regularly  seek 
the  public  service  with  sordid  and  selfish  views,  he  will  not 
be  surprised  if  we  venture  to  conclude  that  his  own  are  of  that 
character  ;  and  as  he  had  previously  informed  us  that  the  proper 
method  of  rewarding  such  services,  was  by  an  unceremonious 
dismissal,  whenever  it  suited  our  convenience,  we  rather  wonder 
that  he  should  have  been  so  deeply  wounded  by  his  own  re 
jection  as  Minister  Plenipotentiary  to  Great  Britain.  Let  us 
hope  that  he  will  have  made  up  his  mind  to  endure  the  negative 
of  the  people  upon  his  pretensions  to  the  Vice  Presidency  with 
more  composure 

The  degree  of  sincerity  with  which  the  President  expressed 
these  opinions,  were  pretty  distinctly  shown  soon  after,  when  a 
missive  was  despatched  from  his  own  cabinet  under  his  own 
frank,  soliciting  a  renomination  from  the  Legislature  of  Pennsyl 
vania. 

There  is  the  less  reason  to  refute  this  poor  pretence  of 
argument,  inasmuch  as  even  this  has  since  been  dropped.  After 
first  justifying  the  prescriptive  system  on  the  ground  that  the 
public  offices  had  fallen  into  corrupt  or  incompetent  hands,  and 
then  pretending  that  a  perpetual  rotation  in  office  was  in  theory, 
the  true  method  of  transacting  the  public  business  to  the  best 
advantage,  the  party  finally  threw  off  the  mask,  and  openly 
avowed,  in  the  person  of  Mr.  Senator  Marcy,  that  the  real 
object  of  the  removals  was  to  distribute  among  their  followers  the 
SPOILS  OF  VICTORY.  In  making  this  precious  confession, 
Mr.  Marcy  very  properly  spoke  for  the  New  York  school. 
Sack  is  the  principle  upon  which  we,  act  in  New  York.  The 
public  were  pretty  well  aware  of  this  before,  but  it  is  not  amiss 
to  have  it  certified  under  the  hand  and  seal  of  the  Regency.  It 
only  remains  for  them  to  be  as  explicit  in  regard  to  the  means 
they  employ  as  they  have  been  in  regard  to  the  ends  they  aim 
at,  and  to  emblazon  upon  their  flag  that  other  favorite  New  York 
maxim,— ALL'S  FAIR  IN  POLITICS.  We  shall  then  know 
what  to  depend  upon,  and  if  we  are  taken  in  by  them,  it  will  at 
least  be  with  our  eyes  open. 
4 


26 

The  unblushing  and  brazen  faced  assurance  with  which  these 
political  gamblers  glory  in  their  shame  is  almost  comic.  But  it 
is  time  to  quit  this  odious  subject.  The  appointments  that  were 
made  to  fill  the  vacancies  created  by  the  prescriptive  policy, 
furnish  another  chapter  still  more  humiliating,  if  possible,  to 
the  friends  of  the  country,  than  that  of  the  removals.  It  really 
seemed  at  one  time  as  if  the  State  Prison  was  to  become  one  of 
the  steps  in  the  career  of  official  promotion.  When  before, 
was  it  ever  known  in  this  or  any  other  civilized  country,  that  a 
Diplomatic  Agent  had  occasion,  before  he  proceeded  on  his 
mission,  to  explain  the  circumstances  under  which  he  was 
indicted  for  forgery  ? — Even  this — we  say  it  with  horror — was 
not  the  worst  case.  For  the  honor  of  the  country  and  of 
humanity,  we  gladly  draw  a  veil  over  the  details  of  this 
scene. 

Happily,  the  excess  of  the  evil  wrought  immediately  its  own 
cure,  and  compelled  the  Senate  to  adopt  an  entire  independence 
in  regard  to  approvals,  which  they  might  not  otherwise  have  so 
readily  come  into,  and  which,  to  a  considerable  extent  at  least, 
stayed  the  plague.  To  this  distinguished  body,  not  inferior  in 
the  eloquence,  elevated  standing,  and  manly  patriotism  of  its 
members,  to  the  Roman  Senate  in  its  brightest  days,  the  people 
of  this  country  are  under  great  obligations.  They  stood  forth 
boldly,  at  one  of  the  darkest  periods  we  have  yet  known,  to 
redeem  the  national  honor,  and  to  arrest  the  base  spirit  of  ser 
vility  to  Executive  dictation  that  appeared  to  be  curdling  the 
very  heart's  blood  of  the  Republic.  If  the  national  flag  has  not 
been  trampled  under  foot  by  the  British  ministry — if  the  terri 
tory  of  Maine  is  yet  entire — if  we  are  not  represented  in  several 
foreign  courts  by  men  who  have  been  or  should  be  the  tenants 
of  our  penitentiaries — we  owe  it  to  the  noble  resistance  of  the 
Senate.  Much  no  doubt  of  evil  they  could  not  prevent  :  wounds 
have  been  inflicted  upon  the  Constitution  which  it  will  require 
the  efforts  of  them  and  their  successors  for  many  years  to  come 
to  heal  ;  but  they  did  great  good  by  their  immediate  action,  and 
their  high  example  has  done  still  more.  Their  rnanly  indepen 
dence  has  awakened  a  corresponding  spirit  throughout  the 
country.  The  wretched  delusion  under  which  the  people  were 
at  one  time  laboring,  seems  to  be  rapidly  passing  off,  and  there 
is  reason  to  hope  that  all  will  yet  be  well. 

In  the  next  chapter,  we  shall  proceed  in  the  examination  of 
the  policy  of  Gen.  Jackson,  and  inquire  briefly  into  the  man 
ner  in  which  he  has  managed  our  Foreign  Relations. 


27 

CHAPTER  V. 
FOREIGN  RELATIONS. 

THE  leading  characteristics  of  the  conduct  of  the  present  Ad 
ministration  have  been  violence  and  meanness  : — a  combination 
of  qualities  as  unattractive  as  any  that  can  perhaps  well  be  im 
agined.  Wherever  the  direct  influence  of  Gen.  Jackson  is  ap 
parent,  their  proceedings  have  been  rude,  arbitrary,  and  often 
absolutely  unconstitutional :  where  Mr.  Van  Buren  may  be 
supposed  to  give  the  direction,  the  policy  pursued  is  usually 
cunning,  trickish  and  mean.  This  is  more  particularly  the  case 
with  the  Foreign  Relations,  which  form  so  important  a  part  of  the 
attributions  of  the  Federal  Government,  and  in  which  the  opera 
tion  of  low  and  narrow  motives,  especially  those  of  a  party 
character,  is  in  every  way  so  ungraceful.  This  department  of 
the  administration  of  Gen.  Jackson  has  been  marked  by  two 
principal  features :  first,  a  mean  assumption  of  the  credit  of 
negotiations  undertaken,  matured,  and  in  several  instances  con 
cluded  by  his  predecessor ;  and  secondly,  a  mean  prostration  of 
the  honor  of  the  country  at  the  feet  of  the  British  Ministry,  for 
the  purpose  of  obtaining,  at  all  sacrifices,  the  appearance  of  a 
successful  arrangement  of  the  question  of  the  Colonial  trade. 

It  was  said  of  the  celebrated  Carnot,  that  he  organized  vic 
tory  in  the  French  armies.  It  may  be  said  with  equal  truth  of 
Mr.  Adams,  that  he  organized  success  in  the  diplomacy  of  the 
United  States.  As  Chairman  of  the  Commissioners  at  Ghent  he 
was  called  on,  of  course,  to  take  the  lead  in  the  negotiations  for 
peace;  and  the  ability  with  which  he  conducted  them,  not  only 
contributed  as  much  as  any  other  cause  to  procure  us  an  advan 
tageous  peace,  but  called  forth  from  British  statesmen  of  various 
parties,  including  such  men  as  the  Marquis  Wellesley  and  Sir 
James  Mackintosh,  the  confession  in  open  Parliament  of  the 
1  astonishing  superiority  '  of  the  argument  on  our  side.  Even 
Mr.  Pickering,  then  a  representative  in  Congress,  forgot  on  this 
occasion  his  hereditary  antipathy  to  Mr.  Adams's  father's  son, 
and  cheerfully  joined  in  the  general  expression  of  approbation 
and  gratitude. 

The  conclusion  of  this  treaty  formed  an  era  in  our  history. 
The  close  of  the  long  wars  of  the  French  Revolution  with  which 
it  coincided  in  point  of  time,  left  the  political  world  in  a  wholly  un 
settled  condition.  The  United  States  for  the  first  time  felt  their 
importance,  and  were  called  upon  to  stand  forth  as  a  really  in- 


28 

dependent  power  in  the  brotherhood  of  nations.  The  relations 
belonging  to  this  new  position  were  to  be  created.  The  task 
wasone  of  the  highest  delicacy,  and  the  honor  of  taking  the  princi 
pal  direction  in  the  execution  of  it  devolved  upon  Mr.  Adams. 
Upon  assuming  the  duties  of  Secretary  of  State  under  President 
Monroe,  he  commenced  negotiations  with  all  the  principal 
powers  of  the  old  and  new  world.  The  immediate  management 
of  them  was  committed  in  general  to  citizens  of  distinguished 
talents  and  learning,  and  they  were  continued  with  unremitted 
assiduity  and  diligence  during  the  whole  period  of  the  admin 
istration  of  Messrs.  Monroe  and  Adams.  It  would  of  course 
carry  us  beyond  the  limits  of  the  present  essay  to  give  even  a 
concise  sketch  of  the  plans  of  foreign  policy  embraced  in  these 
negotiations.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  they  will  hereafter  furnish  a 
subject  for  one  of  the  most  interesting  and  honorable  chapters 
in  our  national  history.  Our  present  object  is  rather  to  consid 
er  the  degree  of  success  which  attended  these  operations. 

It  is  well  known  that  no  results  can  be  obtained  in  the  way 
of  diplomatic  negotiation  excepting  by  much  perseverance  and 
long  delay.  But  such  was  the  correctness  of  the  principles  upon 
which  Mr.  Adams  had  predicated  his  foreign  policy,  and  such 
the  ability  with  which  they  had  been  enforced,  that  the  negotia 
tions  had  taken,  in  almost  all  quarters,  a  satisfactory  direction. 
Our  relations  with  the  new  South  American  States  had  been 
established  : — our  claims  on  many  of  the  European  powers,  for 
spoliations  committed  during  the  war,  had  been  urged  by  unan 
swerable  arguments,  the  force  of  which  (hese  powers  were  begin- 
ing  to  feel: — our  true  position  in  regard  to  Russia, — the  cardin- 
nal  point  in  our  foreign  relations  as  a  political  power,  was  for 
the  first  time  perceived  and  acted  on  : — new  commercial  arrange 
ments  were  matured  or  concluded  with  more  than  one  State  of 
the  first  order,  particularly  Austria  and  Turkey.  With  Great 
Britain  our  negotiations  had  been  brought  to  a  crisis,  which, 
though  it  wore  for  the  moment  an  unfavorable  aspect,  must  have 
terminated — had  not  the  progress  of  the  affair  been  interrupted 
by  the  blundering  interference  of  Mr.  Van  Buren — in  a  mutu 
ally  beneficial  convention.  In  short,  our  negotiations  abroad 
were  in  a  good  train  in  all  quarters,  and  this  without  the  use  of 
corrupt  means,  or  any  compromise  of  the  national  dignity.  The 
reputation  and  influence  of  the  country  in  foreign  courts  were 
constantly  increasing,  and  our  representatives  were  every  where 
the  objects  of  particular  esteem  and  favor. 

Such  was  the  state  of  things  when  Gen.  Jackson  came  into 
power-  What  was  to  be  done  ?  A  President  who  had  had  the 
least  pretensions  to  discretion  and  patriotism,  would  have  consid- 


29 

ered  himself  too  happy  to  be  able  to  proceed  in  the  same  course, 
upon  the  same  principles,  and  as  far  as  possible  with  the  same 
agents : — would  have  shrunk  instinctively  from  any  movement 
that  should  disturb  in  the  slightest  degree  the  existing  harmony. 
With  the  degraded  beings  who  had  now  usurped  the  seats  once  oc 
cupied  by  Washingtons,  Adamses,  Hamiltons  and  Jeffersons, 
the  first  thought  was  to  appropriate  the  poor  pittance  with 
which  the  country  rewards  or  rather  ruins  its  diplomatic  agents, 
as  a  part  of  the  SPOILS  OF  VICTORY.  For  the  first  time 
in  the  history  of  this  or  any  other  civilized  country,  a  change 
of  Administration  was  made  the  signal  for  a  general  recall  of  the 
foreign  ministers.  Our  whole  policy  was  put  at  risk  : — our  ne 
gotiations  thrown  into  a  state  of  suspense  : — a  great  positive 
outlay  incurred: — public  agents  of  acknowledged  ability  and  expe 
rience  rudely  thrust  out  of  place: — and  all  for  the  honorable  pur 
pose  of  providing  a  few  additional  morsels  for  the  ravenous  maw  of 
the  "  Monster  Party."  Such  was  the  blundering  impatience  with 
which  Mr.  Van  Buren  conducted  this  operation,  that  he  did 
not  even  stop  to  ask  the  chief  clerk  in  the  Department  of  State 
what  was  the  regular  form  of  recalling  a  foreign  minister.  This 
at  least  is  the  most  charitable  construction  which  can  be  put  upon 
the  fact,  that  in  the  mode  of  doing  it  he  violated  all  the  ordinary 
rules  of  international  courtesy.  As  to  the  persons  recalled, 
they — to  reward  them  for  years  of  expatriation,  labor  and  pecu 
niary  sacrifice — were  publicly  insulted  as  corrupt  nnd  incapable. 
After  extending  this  manly  and  decorous  treatment  to  we  know 
not  how  many  honorable  citizens,  Mr.  Van  Buren,  when  nega 
tived  himself  by  the  Senate,  very  coolly  represents  his  case  as 
one  of  peculiar  hardship!  This  modest  little  gentleman  proba 
bly  supposes  that  he  has  a  patent  right  to  outrage  the  most 
eminent  citizens  in  the  country  with  impunity,  and  that  they, 
instead  of  resenting  or  taking  it  amiss,  ought  to  think  themselves 
too  happy  to  be  trampled  upon  by  so  great  a  man. 

Such  was  the  debut  of  Gen.  Jackson  in  the  management  of 
our  foreign  relations  :  a  violent  and  sudden  interruption  of  all 
the  most  important  negotiations  for  the  purpose  of  placing  a 
troop  of  his  favorites. — And  such  favorites  ! — But  we  will  not 
touch  again  upon  this  odious  topic.  The  beginning,  it  must  be 
owned,  was  not  auspicious.  Still,  however,  the  negotiations  had 
been  so  judiciously  planned  and  were  in  so  good  a  train  when 
Jackson  took  them  in  hand,  that  with  all  his  blunders,  and  all 
his  ignorance,  he  could  not  prevent  them  from  coming  to  a  suc 
cessful  issue. — Treaties  were  sent  home  soon  after  the  opening 
of  his  term  from  Brazil,  Austria,  Turkey  and  Denmark,  and 
more  recently  from  France,  and  Mexico,  providing  in  a  satisfac- 


30 

tory  manner  for  the  settlement  of  various  questions  of  long  stand 
ing  and  great  interest,  or  opening  new  commercial  relations. 
Of  these  arrangements  the  whole  credit  is  obviously  due  to  the 
preceding  Administration.  They  had  been  negotiated  on  the 
principles  laid  down  by  Mr.  Adams,  and  under  his  instructions. 
If  the  abrupt  change  in  the  persons  of  the  ministers  did  not 
injure  their  progress,  it  will  at  least  not  be  pretended  that  it 
could  promote  it ;  nor  will  it  be  pretended,  even  by  the  partisans 
of  Jackson,  that  the  change  was  in  any  instance,  so  far  as  person 
al  qualifications  were  concerned,  for  the  better.  The  credit  of 
these  treaties,  belonged,  therefore,  we  repeat,  entirely  to  the 
preceding  Administration.  A  President  of  high  and  honorable 
sentiments  in  announcing  their  conclusion,  would  have  taken 
great  care  to  make  this  fact  distinctly  known.  A  man  of  real 
merit  scorns  to  deck  himself  out  with  borrowed  plumes.  The 
circumstance  that  his  predecessor  was  a  political  opponent, 
would  have  been  an  additional  motive  for  doing  him  the  fullest 
justice — especially  if  that  political  opponent  had  proved  himself 
individually,  and  on  the  most  important  occasions,  a  friend  in 
need.  What  was  Gen.  Jackson's  conduct  ?  From  first  to  last, 
he  has  carefully  omitted  even  to  mention  the  name  of  his  prede 
cessor  in  connection  with  any  of  these  arrangements.  His  par 
tisans,  improving  upon  his  example,  regularly  make  the  conclu 
sion  of  a  treaty  negotiated  entirely  under  the  instructions  of  Mr. 
Adams  and  Mr.  Clay,  the  occasion  for  pouring  out  upon  these 
illustrious  statesmen  a  new  volley  of  slander  and  ribaldry.  Thus, 
when  the  documents  relating  to  the  negotiation  with  Turkey 
were  published  during  the  late  session  of  Congress,  a  scurrilous 
newspaper  printed  in  this  city  employed  them  as  the  text  for  a 
eulogy  on  Mr.  Van  Buren,  and  an  attack  on  Mr.  Clay.  Every 
one  who  has  given  the  subject  the  slightest  attention,  is  aware 
that  the  only  change  made  in  the  arrangements  of  the  preceding 
Administration  in  regard  to  Turkey  by  the  agents  of  the  present 
one,  was  the  introduction  by  the  latter  into  the  treaty,  of  a 
foolish  and  imprudent  article,  which  would  have  prejudiced  our 
relations  with  Russia,  and  which  was  unanimously  rejected  by 
the  Senate. 

It  sickens  the  heart  to  see  this  utter  want  of  all  the  manly 
and  generous  sentiments — this  complete  ascendency  of  the 
meanest  and  basest  propensities  of  our  nature  in  persons  placed 
by  their  official  rank  at  the  very  head  of  society: — to  make  the 
matter  still  worse,  in  a  cabinet  directed  by  a  military  President. 
Generosity,  courtesy,  dignity  of  manner,  an  excess  of  chivalrous 
feeling,  constitute  the  peculiar  graces  of  the  military  character, 
and  in  practice  compensate  in  some  degree  for  the  absence  of 


31 

many  accomplishments  that  are  not  very  compatible  with  that 
line  of  life.  Without  them  the  soldier  degenerates  into  the 
ruffian  and  bully.  We  were  in  fact  told  beforehand,  by  the 
present  partisans  of  Jackson,  that  in  the  event  of  his  election  the 
spirit  belonging  to  these  respectable  professions  would  prevail 
at  Washington.  The  disgraceful  scenes  of  the  last  winter,  to 
which  we  shall  advert  hereafter,  have  confirmed  too  fully  the 
ominous  prophecy. 

Such,  however,  is  the  first  leading  feature  in  this  branch  of  the 
proceedings  of  the  present  Administration: — a  mean  assumption 
of  the  credit  belonging  to  their  predecessors  for  several  treaties, 
negotiated  and  matured  or  concluded  under  their  instructions. 
In  one  important  particular,  Gen.  Jackson  has,  as  we  have 
already  remarked,  given  in  some  degree  a  new  direction  to  the 
foreign  policy  of  the  country.  We  allude,  of  course,  to  the  late 
arrangement  of  the  question  of  the  trade  with  the  British  West 
Indian  Colonies. 

It  is  not  our  purpose,  nor  would  the  limits  of  the  present  es 
say  allow  us,  to  enter  upon  a  detailed  examination  of  the  merits 
of  this  arrangement,  considered  in  itself  and  independently  of  the 
circumstances  under  which  it  was  concluded.  It  has  been  am 
ply  shown  in  the  debates  upon  the  floor  of  the  Senate,  and  par 
ticularly  in  the  able  and  lucid  speech  of  Mr.  Sprague,  that  the 
country,  instead  of  gaining  any  thing  by  this  treaty,  actually 
stands  upon  worse  ground  than  before. — The  effect  of  it,  as  far 
as  it  operates,  which  has  been  as  yet  to  a  very  limited  extent, 
will  be  to  throw  the  carrying  trade  with  the  islands  into  British 
hands.  But  were  the  case  in  this  respect  otherwise, — had  the 
treaty  given  us  every  thing  that  we  had  ever  asked  or  wished, — 
had  it  conveyed  to  us  in  fee  simple  the  whole  soil  and  jurisdic 
tion  of  the  British  West  Indies,  the  advantage  would  have  been 
too  dearly  purchased  at  the  price  which  we  gave  for  what  we 
in  fact  got.  A  Secretary  of  State  denouncing,  in  the  name  of 
the  President,  the  government  of  his  own  country  under  a  pre<- 
ceding  Administration  as  an  opposite  party: — inviting  a  foreign 
Sovereign  to  take  cognizance  of  our  domestic  differences,  to 
enter  into  them,  to  turn  them  to  account  for  the  benefit  of  the 
pitiful  petitioner,  and  of  course  for  his  own!  Never  before  was 
a  spectacle  so  shameful  as  this  exhibited  on  the  theatre  of  Ameri 
can  diplomacy.  Never,  we  trust,  after  the  signal  rebuke  which 
the  managers  received  in  this  instance,  will  it  be  repeated.  The 
British  Government  called  in  to  assist  a  recreant  Administration 
in  sustaining  itself  against  the  indignant  outcry  of  the  country  ! 
Shades  of  Washington,  Hancock  and  Adams — of  Hamilton, 
Jefferson.  Monroe  and  Pinckney  !  Was  this  then  to  be  the 


32 

Jlnale  of  the  long  series  of  remonstrances,  declarations,  non-inter 
courses,  embargoes,  and  wars,  that  have  made  up  our  relations 
with  England  for  the  last  sixty  years,  and  given  full  employment 
to  the  heads,  the  hearts,  the  pens,  the  tongues,  and  the  swords  of 
our  best  and  bravest  ?  This  the  denouement  of  the  supersensi- 
tive  delicacy  that  shrunk  from  the  slightest  breath  of  British  in 
terference  in  our  politics,  foreign  or  domestic,  as  if  it  had  been 
a  blasting  pestilence  or  a  red-hot  sirocco  ?  Where  was  the 
good  genius  of  our  country  when  a  miserable  Dutch  pettifogger 
took  the  star-spangled  banner,  all  radiant  as  it  was,  with  fifty 
years  of  honor  and  victory,  and  spread  it  out  as  a  carpet  for  the 
feet  of  Lord  Aberdeen?  No,  never,  never  before  was  there 
such  an  example  of  national  degradation.  Thanks  to  Provi 
dence,  the  public  feeling  of  the  country  revolted  against  it  by  a 
soft  of  convulsive  reaction,  and  instead  of  prostrating  the  Union 
at  the  feet  of  the  British  Minister,  Mr.  Van  Buren  has  only  suc 
ceeded  in  prostrating  himself  at  the  feet  of  the  Senate  and  Peo 
ple  of  the  United  States. — This  exploit  finishes,  we  trust,  his 
political  career,  and  determines  the  character  that  he  will  leave 
behind  him.  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  THE  SECRETARY  or  STATE 
WHO  DENOUNCED  HIS  PREDECESSOR  AS  A  POLITICAL  OPPONENT  TO 
THE  BRITISH  MINISTRY. 

How  contemptible  too  was  the  apology  made  for  this  con 
temptible  proceeding  by  the  partisans  of  the  Administration  in 
the  Senate  !  Not  a  lisp  in  justification  ;  but  it  seems  that  this 
part  of  the  instructions  was  dictated  by  the  President  himself, 
and  Mr.  Van  Buren  is  of  course  not  responsible  for  it.  The 
Globe  has  in  fact  informed  us  in  so  many  words  that  the  gen 
eral  is  BORN  TO  COMMAND,  and  Mr.  Van  Buren,  we  know, 
is  ambitious  of  no  higher  distinction  than  the  GLORY  OF 
OBEDIENCE  to  such  a  commander.  Poor  creatures  !  Are 
they  really  in  earnest,  or  are  they  sporting  with  the  supposed  in 
fatuation  of  the  people  1  Was  Mr.  Van  Buren  then  a  passive 
instrument  in  the  hands  of  his  master?  Had  he  no  mind,  voice, 
will,  heart,  or  hand  of  his  own  ?  When  before  was  there  a  Sec 
retary  of  State  in  the  United  States,  who  shrunk  from  the  respon 
sibility  of  a  letter  that  bore  his  own  signature  ?  When  before 
was  there  a  Secretary  of  State  in  the  United  States,  who  would 
not  have  hurled  his  commission  back  in  the  face  of  a  President 
who  should  have  dared  to  ask  him  to  sign  the  dishonor  of  his 
country  ?  But  it  is  of  little  importance  to  the  people  how  these 
worthies  divide  between  them  the  responsibility  of  this  business. 
There  is  infamy  enough  about  it  to  bankrupt  the  whole  firm. 

There  are  other  points  of  a  doubtful  character  in  our  recent 
negotiations  with  England.  There  is  reason  to  suppose  that 


33 

Mr.  Van  Buren  undertook  to  tamper  with  the  great  and  deli 
cate  questions  of  Impressment  and  Neutral  Rights,  and  as  it 
has  never  been  said  of  him,  as  it  was  of  Goldsmith,  that  he 
adorns  whatever  he  touches,  we  may  be  sure  that  his  interfer 
ence  with  these  matters  bodes  no  good  to  the  honor  of  the  coun 
try.  It  has  been  vaguely  rumored  that  some  apparent  conces 
sion  on  these  points  was  to  have  been  purchased  by  a  base  sur 
render  of  the  territorial  and  personal  rights  of  the  State  of 
Maine.  This  work  of  iniquity,  if  it  were  in  fact  contemplated, 
has  been  nipped  in  the  bud  by  the  noble  interference  of  the 
Senate,  and  we  shall  probably  never  know  with  certainty  wheth 
er  it  was  or  was  not  entered  upon.  The  bare  suspicion  of 
having  entertained  the  intention  of  making  such  a  compromise, 
would  be  sufficient,  if  there  were  nothing  else  exceptiona 
ble  about  him,  to  fix  the  measure  of  Mr.  Van  Buren's  charac 
ter. 

So  much  for  our  relations  with  Great  Britain,  the  only  part  of 
our  foreign  policy  of  which  the  present  Administration  can  prop 
erly  claim  the  credit.  No  patriotic  and  high-spirited  American 
can  read  the  account  of  them  without  the  strongest  feelings  of 
contempt  and  indignation.  They  constitute  the  serious  part  of 
the  business  :  but  in  all  human  affairs,  we  are  continually  pass 
ing  from  grave  to  gay,  and  after  going  through  with  the  Trag  dy 
it  was  perhaps  not  unnatural  that  we  should  be  entertained  witu 
a  Farce. — When  Napoleon  elevated  the  Grand  Duke  of  Wir- 
temburg,  a  bloated,  blundering  butcher-like  potentate  of  the  old 
school,  to  the  dignity  of  King,  it  was  said  that  he  had  for  ten  or 
twelve  years  been  doing  all  he  could  to  keep  the  Germans  in 
tears,  and  that  he  was  resolved  for  once  to  make  them  laugh. 
This,  or  something  like  it  was  probably  the  intention  of  Jackson 
and  Van  Buren,  when  they  appointed  John  Randolph  our  Min 
ister  to  Russia. 

Our  relations  with  this  great  power  were  previously  in  the 
most  satisfactory  state,  thanks  to  the  ability  and  discretion  with 
which  they  had  been  managed  by  the  preceding  Administration. 
The  Russian  Cabinet,  which  has  been  for  many  years  intellect 
ually  as  well  as  physically  the  most  powerful  in  Europe,  has  ex 
hibited  its  usual  sagacity  in  its  whole  deportment  towards  the 
United  States.  They  have  seen  that  the  force  of  circumstances  es 
tablishes  a  relation  of  political  alliance  between  the  two  countries, 
and  have  uniformly  acted  accordingly.  In  our  negotiations  for 
peace  with  Great  Britain — in  our  subsequent  negotiations  under 
the  treaty  of  Ghent — in  those  that  have  been  carried  on  more 
recently  with  Turkey — in  short,  throughout  the  whole  progress 
of  our  foreign  affairs  for  the  last  twenty  years,  we  have  enjoyed 


34 

the  benefit  of  the  countenance  and  good  offices  of  Russia.  It 
has  so  happened,  that  we  have  hitherto  had  but  little  opportunity 
of  making  any  substantial  return  for  these  demonstrations  of 
national  good  will.  The  least  that  could  be  expected  from  us 
was  that  we  should  discharge  with  punctuality  the  ordinary 
duties  of  official  respect  and  decorum.  What  then  must  have 
been  the  feelings  of  the  Russian  Government,  when — after  such 
a  course  of  conduct  on  their  part  towards  us,  a  minister  known 
to  be  personally  agreeable  to  the  Emperor  was  abruptly  recall 
ed,  as  if  for  the  purpose  of  repaying  his  friendship  with  studied 
insult?  What,  again,  must  have  been  the  impression  made  up 
on  the  Russian  Court,  accustomed  as  they  had  been  to  the  dig 
nity  and  propriety  of  Mr.  Middleton's  deportment — when  they 
saw  the  new  Plenipotentiary  taking  the  field  in  a  hunting  dress 
— going  down  upon  his  knees  before  the  Emperor,  and — after 
playing  a  few  more  fantastic  tricks  of  the  same  description — 
departing  before  he  had  fairly  entered  upon  his  duties,  and  fix 
ing  his  residence — of  all  the  places  in  the  world — at  London  ? 
No  construction  could  of  course  be  put  upon  such  conduct  but 
the  true  one,  viz.  that  the  minister  was  half  crazy.  But  must 
not  the  Russian  Cabinet  have  thought  the  President  entirely  so, 
to  recall  such  a  man  as  Mr.  Middleton  for  the  purpose  of  com 
mitting  the  affairs  of  the  Legation  to  such  a  successor? 

Such  has  been  the  mode,  in  which  our  foreign  relations  have 
been  managed  by  the  present  incumbents  in  the  government. 
For  his  proceedings  towards  both  England  and  Russia,  we  have 
no  hesitation  in  saying,  that  the  President  richly  deserves  the 
honors  of  impeachment.  In  the  next  chapter  we  shall  take  up 
the  subject  of  the  Domestic  Policy  of  the  country,  the  history  of 
which  is  about  as  creditable  to  the  discretion  and  ability  of  our 
rulers,  as  that  of  the  foreign. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

DOMESTIC  POLICY. 

Violence  and  Meanness , — such,  as  we  remarked  in  the  last 
chapter,  have  been  the  leading  characteristics  of  the  conduct 
of  the  Administration.  We  have  seen  them  exemplified  in  their 
mode  of  managing  our  foreign  relations  :  we  shall  see  them  still 
more  fully  displayed  in  our  home  politics,  which  will  form  the 
subject  of  this  and  the  two  or  three  following  chapters. 


35 

An  Administration,  like  an  individual,  must  be  supposed  to 
have,  and  in  fact  always  has,  certain  objects  to  which  its  atten 
tion  is  chiefly  devoted.  Thus  the  leading  point  of  the  policy 
of  Rome  for  several  centuries  was  the  overthrow  of  the  rival 
republic  of  Carthage.  The  great  object  of  the  British  govern 
ment  while  under  the  brilliant  administration  of  the  younger 
Pitt,  was  to  check  the  progress  of  the  spirit  of  political  reform 
at  home  and  abroad  : — the  present  object  of  the  same  govern 
ment  is  to  aid  and  accelerate  this  progress.  The  object  of 
Napoleon  was  to  found  a  vast  military  despotism  upon  the  ruins 
of  all  the  free  states  of  Europe  : — that  of  the  Russian  govern 
ment,  from  the  time  of  Peter  the  Great  to  the  present  day,  has 
been  substantially  the  same.  To  come  nearer  home,  the  chief 
object  of  the  government  of  the  United  States,  from  its  organ 
ization  till  the  treaty  of  Ghent,  was  the  security  of  our  com 
mercial  and  political  rights  as  a  neutral  power :  that  of  all  the 
following  Administrations,  until  the  present,  was  the  develope- 
ment  of  our  internal  resources  and  the  encouragement  of  do 
mestic  industry.  Such  are  the  great  concerns  that  engage  the 
attention  of  statesmen,  and  serve  to  show  that,  even  in  their 
errors  and  excesses,  they  have  at  least  something  of  the  eleva 
tion  of  spirit  that  belongs  to  their  position. 

The  objects  of  the  present  Administration  have  been  of  a  dif 
ferent  character.  It  is  admitted  by  their  partisans  that,  in  seek 
ing  to  obtain  possession  of  the  government,  they  had  nothing 
in  view  but  the  SPOILS  OF  VICTORY.  The  distribution 
of  these  spoils  has  of  course  been  the  great  affair,  and  the  lead 
ing  principle  of  conduct  has  been  to  distribute  them,  as  far  as 
possible,  in  such  a  way  as  would  best  ensure  their  possession 
for  another  term,  or,  in  other  words,  as  would  most  effectually 
"  bring  the  patronage  of  the  government  into  conflict  with  the 
purity  of  elections."  We  have  already  adverted  particularly 
to  this  feature  in  the  proceedings  of  the  Administration,  in  our 
chapter  on  the  Policy  of  Proscription. — But  even  this  object,  base 
as  it  is,  was  too  elevated  to  be  steadily  pursued. — Thrown  up 
by  accident,  as  they  have  been,  out  of  the  lowest  circles  of  so 
ciety — wholly  destitute  of  the  intellectual  qualities  and  accom 
plishments  that  are  wanted  in  the  vast  sphere  of  action  where 
they  are  placed,  their  policy  is  of  course  the  narrowest  self 
interest,  and  even  this  must  constantly  give  way  to  the  impulses 
of  their  personal  propensities  and  habits.  It  is  a  literal  fact 
that,  in  the  midst  of  all  the  political  agitations  of  the  present 
critical  period,  the  object  which  has  engaged,  more  than  any 
other,  the  attention  of  the  government  of  the  United  States 
under  the  administration  of  General  Jackson,  has  been  that  of 


36 

procuring    a   favorable    reception   for    a  female  friend  of  the 
President  in  the  fashionable  circles  of  Washington. 

It  is  easy  to  see,  upon  the  slightest  survey  of  the  proceed 
ings  of  the  Administration,  in  regard  to  the  great  and  paramount 
concerns  which  really  constitute  the  domestic  policy  of  the  coun 
try,  that  the  latter  have  been  entirely  sacrificed  to  these  misera 
ble  party  and  personal  interests. — The  Tariff  and  Internal  Im 
provements: — The  Indians  and  the  Missionaries,  and  the  Bank, 
are  the  most  important  subjects  connected  with  the  internal 
situation  of  the  country,  that  have  come  under  consideration 
during  the  last  three  years.  We  shall  advert  briefly,  in  suc 
cession,  to  each,  and  shall  be  able  to  show  without  difficulty, 
that,  in  reference  to  all  of  them,  the  President  has  acted,  from 
the  blind  and  arbitrary  impulse  of  his  own  will,  or  with  a  single 
view  to  secure  and  perpetuate  the  ascendancy  of  the  party. 

1.  The  Tariff: — Since  the  close  of  the  war  with  Great  Brit 
ain,  the  developement  of  the  internal  resources  of  the  country 
by  the  encouragement  of  domestic  industry,  and  the  opening 
of  communications  by  land  and  water,  between  the  different 
sections  of  the  Union,  have  become,  as  we  have  already  re 
marked,  the  principal  objects  of  interest  with  the  people.  The 
course  of  legislative  measures  intended  to  effect  these  objects, 
which  was  entered  upon  as  early  as  the  first  formation  of  the 
government,  has  been  pursued  with  increased  vigor  and  spirit. 
A  difference  of  opinion  has  no  doubt  existed  in  regard  to  the 
expediency,  and  even  the  constitutionality  of  these  measures, 
but  they  have  been  steadily  sustained  by  great,  and  regularly 
increasing  majorities  of  the  citizens,  and  after  the  favorable 
results  of  the  violent  attack  made  upon  them  in  Congress  last 
winter,  may  be  viewed  as  the  settled  policy  of  the  nation.  In 
the  new  impulse  which  was  given  to  the  progress  of  this  system 
soon  after  the  close  of  the  war,  Mr.  Calhoun  and  his  immediate 
friends  and  political  associates  from  Carolina  took  the  lead:  and 
it  is  a  singular  and  signal  example  of  political  inconsistency, 
that  these  very  statesmen  should  have  become  the  leaders  of  a 
party  which  denounces  the  same  system  as  not  only  inexpedient 
but  unconstitutional,  and  a  fit  occasion  for  actual  rebellion  (such 
is  the  plain  English  of  nullification^  against  the  General  Gov 
ernment.  The  Eastern  States  came  rather  slowly  and  reluc 
tantly  into  the  adoption  of  the  system.  They  were  apprehen 
sive  of  its  effect  upon  their  navigation,  and  until  recently  op 
posed  it  in  every  stage  of  its  progress.  Experience  has  at 
length  satisfied  them  of  its  expediency:  they  have  invested  their 
capital  on  the  faith  of  its  continuance,  and  are  now  among  its 
warmest  supporters.  The  Great  West  has  been  from  the  be- 


37 

ginning,  the  ardent,  consistent,  and  undeviating  advocate  of 
the  same  principles,  which,  important  as  they  are  every  where 
else,  constitute  in  that  quarter  of  the  Union,  the  sine  qua  non  of 
prosperity,  and  even  political  existence. 

As  a  Western  politician,  General  Jackson  was  of  course  vir 
tually  pledged  to  the  Tariff.  He  had  given  before  his  election, 
the  most  positive  and  satisfactory  assurances  of  his  devotion  to 
the  protecting  policy,  particularly  in  his  letter  to  the  Governor 
of  Indiana.  Pennsylvania,  whose  support  first  gave  conse 
quence  to  his  nomination,  was  perhaps  the  one  of  all  the  states 
most  deeply  interested  in,  and  most  unequivocally  pledged  to 
the  American  System.  There  was,  therefore,  every  reason  to 
suppose  that  whatever  other  deficiencies  there  might  be  in  the 
character  of  Jackson,  the  great  interest  of  domestic  industry 
would, — as  long  as  he  should  be  President, — be  sure  of  a  firm 
and  steady  support  in  the  Executive  department  of  the  gov 
ernment. 

What  has  been  the  fact? — No  sooner  had  he  effected  his 
election,  than  his  advisers  began  to  calculate  the  value  of  the 
Tariff  as  a  party  measure.  It  was  found  that  a  considerable 
portion  of  the  citizens  who  are  opposed  to  the  protecting  policy, 
had  favored  his  election,  and  would  probably  be  disposed  to 
continue  him  in  office;  and  that  on  the  other  hand,  a  majority 
of  the  friends  of  the  system  were  attached  to  his  opponents, 
Messrs.  Adams  and  Clay. 

What  was  to  be  done  ?  A  high-minded  and  patriotic  Presi 
dent  would  have  pursued  a  straight  forward  course, — main 
tained  his  principles, — redeemed  his  pledges,  and  left  his  popu 
larity  and  his  re-election  to  take  care  of  themselves.  Gen. 
Jackson  and  Mr.  Van  Buren  looked  at  the  matter  under  a  dif 
ferent  point  of  view.  It  would  not  answer  to  alienate  the  South, 
where  their  strength  lay,  by  a  rnanly  and  consistent  support  of 
the  protecting  policy:  it  would  not  answer  on  the  other  hand, 
to  alienate  the  portion  of  the  friends  of  that  system,  including 
Pennsylvania  and  the  West,  which  were  friends  to  them,  by 
openly  attacking  it.  The  only  thing  they  could  do  was  to  at 
tempt  to  steer  a  middle  course  which  should,  if  possible,  please 
both  parties,  or  at  least  not  decidedly  offend  either.  The  lan 
guage  of  the  messages  on  this  subject  has  been  uniformly  vague 
and  vacillating.  When  the  battle  came  on  last  winter  before 
Congress,  and  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  was  called  on  to 
propose  a  measure,  he  made  many  fair  professions  of  regard 
for  domestic  industry,  and  reported  a  bill,  which  would  have 
left  the  woollen  manufacture — one  of  the  most  important  of  all 
— the  one  of  all,  to  which  protection  at  the  present  moment  is 


38 

perhaps  most  necessary— entirely  unprotected.  The  great  in 
fluence  of  the  Executive  was  exerted  to  get  through  a  bill  upon 
this  basis,  and  it  was  only  by  intense  exertion  and  the  most  de 
cided  superiority  in  argument,  that  the  friends  of  the  country 
were  enabled  to  make  head  against  the  combination  of  open 
and  disguised  enemies,  and  secure  to  this  great  interest  a  bare 
—perhaps,  after  all,  an  inadequate  protection.  The  reckless 
tools  of  party  would  have  sacrificed  a  capital  of  a  hundred  arid 
fifty  millions  of  dollars,  and  the  happiness  of  the  persons  con 
nected  with  it,  without  hesitation  or  scruple,  to  their  miserable 
objects  of  personal  ambition. 

2.  The  case  is  substantially  the  same  with  Internal  Improve 
ments — the  other  great  feature  in  what  has  been  appropriately 
termed  the  American  System.  Here  too  the  President  was 
pledged  by  his  position  in  the  country — by  his  professed  opin 
ions  and  by  the  known  interest  of  his  warmest  original  sup 
porters,  to  the  protecting  policy;  and  here  too  we  have  seen, 
perhaps  even  more  distinctly  than  in  regard  to  the  Tariff — the 
predominance  of  the  same  wretched,  time-serving,  vacillating 
spirit  that  sacrifices  every  higher  consideration  to  party  man 
agement  and  the  hope  of  temporary  popularity.  In  the  message 
announcing  the  veto  of  the  Maysville  Road  Bill,  the  President 
distinctly  admitted  the  right  of  the  General  Government  to 
make  internal  improvements  of  a  national  character,  and  at  the 
same  time  negatived  a  road  which  would  have  formed  a  portion 
of  the  great  thoroughfare  between  the  sea-board  and  the  in 
terior — a  national  communication,  one  would  think, — if  any  one 
in  the  country  can  ever  deserve  that  epithet.  The  object  seems 
to  have  been  to  propitiate  the  friends  of  Internal  Improvement 
by  the  doctrines  of  the  message,  and  its  enemies  by  the  mea 
sures  announced  in  it.  The  same  system  was  pursued  at  the 
last  session  of  Congress,  when  bills,  involving  precisely  the 
same  principles,  were  alternately  rejected  and  approved  by  the 
President.  The  action  of  the  Government  on  this  subject  has 
in  fact,  been  so  palpably,  we  may  almost  say  ludicrously  inco 
herent,  that  it  can  hardly  be  accounted  for,  even  upon  the  prin 
ciple  of  party  management,  and  must  in  many  instances  be  at 
tributed  to  the  mere  personal  caprice  of  the  despot.  On  the 
whole,  however,  the  leaning  of  the  Administration  is  adverse  to 
the  progress  of  internal  improvement,  and  is  apparently  becom 
ing  more  so  from  year  to  year.  In  fact,  the  President  at  the 
close  of  the  late  message  accompanying  the  veto  on  the  Bank, 
distinctly  intimates,  if  his  language  is  to  be  considered  as  con 
veying  any  definite  meaning,  that  the  whole  doctrine  of  the 


39 

protecting  policy,  in  both  its  great  branches,  is  entirely  false  and 
ought  to  be  abandoned. 

It  appears,  therefore,  that  in  regard  to  the  great  subjects  of 
the  Tariff  and  Internal  Improvements,  Gen.  Jackson  has  for 
feited  the  pledges  under  which  he  came  into  office.  He  was 
elected  as  a  friend  of  the  American  System:  he  has  thus  far 
given  it  a  cold,  vacillating,  uncertain  support,  and  there  is  rea 
son  to  believe,  that  if  re-elected,  he  will  come  out  its  open 
enemy. 

Under  these  circumstances  we  say  to  those  citizens  who 
are  attached  to  the  principles  of  the  Protecting  Policy,  and 
whose  interests  are  identified  with  its  maintenance,  who  have 
hitherto  supported  General  Jackson  because  they  believed 
him  to  be  friendly  to  their  interests,  and  who  have  found 
themselves  invariably  disappointed  by  his  proceedings, — Will 
you  give  your  confidence  again  to  a  person  who  has  once  so 
grossly  deceived  you?  Will  you  aid  in  re-electing  a  President 
who  has  forfeited  all  the  pledges  under  which  he  was  before 
elected  ?  Should  you  do  this,  can  you  blame  any  one  but  your 
selves  if  your  establishments  are  broken  up,  your  fortunes 
ruined,  and  yourselves  turned  adrift  upon  the  world? 

We  would  say,  in  particular,  to  the  citizens  of  the  great  state 
of  PENNSYLVANIA— You  made  Gen.  Jackson  what  he  is  ; 
you  took  him  up  when  his  nomination  was  considered  as  little 
better  than  a  piece  of  solemn  mockery,  and  placed  him  in  the 
chair  of  the  chief  magistracy.  He  publicly  promised,  that  if 
elected,  he  would  serve  but  a  single  term.  Scarcely  was  he 
warm  in  his  seat,  than  he  came  to  you,  and  begged  a  re-nom 
ination.  You  generously  gave  it  to  him.  How  has  he  repaid 
all  your  partiality  ?  You  held  in  your  hands  his  repeated  pledges 
that  he  was  a  firm  and  steady  friend  to  your  great  interests. 
How  have  they  been  redeemed  ?  Was  Mr.  Me  Lane's  plan  of 
a  Tariff  Bill  a  very  natural  way  of  noticing  the  unanimous  reso 
lution  of  your  Legislature  in  favor  of  the  protecting  policy  ?  or 
the  Veto  message  that  in  favor  of  the  Bank  ?  Can  you,  as 
men  of  good  sense — of  prudence — of  honorable  pride — continue 
to  support  a  President  who  returns  your  civility  by  laying  the 
axe  at  the  root  of  all  your  establishments,  and  who,  if  he  be  re- 
elected,  and  persevere,  as  he  doubtless  will,  in  the  same  course, 
will  carry  desolation  and  poverty  through  your  state  ?  We 
think  not  ;  and  the  noble  efforts  which  you  are  now  making  in 
all  quarters  to  shake  off  the  yoke  seem  to  show  that  you  are  of 
the  same  opinion. 

We    would    say,    in  like    manner,   to   the    citizens   of    our 
neighboring  state    of  NEW   HAMPSHIRE— one   of   those 


40 

which  are  most  deeply  interested  in  the  maintenance  and 
success  of  the  protecting  system — How  long  will  you  permit 
yourselves  to  be  misrepresented  on  the  floor  of  Congress,  and 
in  your  own  Legislature — in  the  Presidential  chair,  as  far  as 
your  influence  extends  in  determining  the  incumbent — by  men 
who  are  blind  to  your  interest,  or,  rather,  who  sacrifice  it  with 
out  scruple  to  their  own  sordid  policy  ?  Without  the  flocks  of 
sheep  that  cover  your  pastures,  and  the  manufactures  that  give 
employment  to  your  sons  and  daughters,  what  would  become 
of  your  population  ?  Would  they  not  at  once  abandon  you 
granite  hills  for  the  green  savannahs  of  the  West  ?  These  flocks 
and  these  manufactures  have  been  brought,  by  the  measures 
adopted  last  winter,  to  the  very  verge  of  destruction.  A  further 
diminution  of  the  protection  hitherto  granted  them  would  com 
plete  the  work.  Will  you,  by  giving  your  suffrages  to  the  men 
who  are  pledged  to  pursue  in  every  future  Congress  the  same 
pernicious  course,  consent  to  depopulate  your  country,  and 
reduce  your  farmers  to  beggary  ?  Make,  once  for  all,  the 
manly  effort  which  alone  is  necessary  to  the  recovery  of  your 
moral  independence  ;  and  let  it  not  be  said  that  the  policy  of 
one  of  the  most  intelligent  and  best-informed  states  of  the 
Union  shall  be  forever  controlled  by  a  single  scurrilous  news 
paper. 

The  same  or  similar  remarks  may  be  addressed,  with  equal  pro 
priety,  to  the  great  agricultural  states  of  the  Middle  and  Western 
parts  of  the  country,  from  New  York  to  Louisiana.  They  all 
supported  Gen.  Jackson  as  a  firm  friend  of  American  industry  : 
they  have  found  him  treacherous,  and  they  owe  it  to  themselves 
not  to  give  him  the  opportunity  of  deceiving  them  a  second  time 
To  the  Southern  states,  which  are  at  present  opposed  to  pro 
tection,  there  is  little  to  be  said  on  this  part  of  the  subject, 
although  even  these,  if  they  took  a  more  correct  view,  of  their 
own  interest,  would  find  it  as  deeply  involved  in  the  maintenance 
of  the  system  as  that  of  any  portion  of  the  country.  To  the 
domestic  producer,  what,  after  all,  can  be  more  important  than  a 
domestic  market  ?  Massachusetts,  with  her  immediate  neigh 
bors  at  the  south  and  west,  is,  happily,  sound.  Maine,  we  trust, 
is  at  this  moment  giving  proofs  of  her  regeneration. 

Our  object  in  these  papers  is  rather  to  point  out  the  errors  in 
the  conduct  of  the  present  Administration,  than  to  exalt  the  merit 
of  the  candidates  for  the  succession.  It  would  be  difficult,  how 
ever,  to  quit  the  subject  of  our  domestic  policy,  without  paying 
a  tribute  of  respect  to  the  extraordinary  deserts  of  Mr.  Clay  in 
regard  to  this  subject.  This  great  statesman,  by  his  exertions 
in  Congress  last  winter,  refreshed  his  reputation,  and  proved 


41 

that  the  progress  of  years  has  only  matured  his  judgment  with 
out  at  all  impairing  the  vigor  and  brilliancy  of  his  eloquence. 
His  speeches  on  the  Tariff  and  the  Public  Lands  are  quite 
equal — in  the  opinion  of  some,  superior — to  the  happiest  efforts 
of  his  earlier  days.  It  was  a  dangerous  experiment — with  him, 
as  well  as  with  Mr.  Adams — to  return  after  so  long  an  absence, 
and  with  so  high  a  reputation  to  sustain,  to  the  floor  of  Congress. 
Both  stood  the  trial  nobly,  and  have  come  out  of  it  with  aug 
mented  fame.  When  we  see  these  distinguished  men  quitting 
their  places  at  the  head  of  the  Executive  department,  and 
entering  the  legislative  bodies  of  the  Union  only  to  take  the 
lead,  as  if  by  general  acknowledgement  in  these  : — when  we 
compare  their  arduous  labors,  their  brilliant  reports  and  speeches, 
their  skilful  management  on  this  new  theatre,  with  the  daily 
exhibitions  of  vulgar  violence  and  intellectual  nothingness  at 
the  White  House,  we  are  struck  with  astonishment  that  an  in 
telligent  people  could  have  fallen  into  so  strange  an  aberration 
of  judgment  as  to  give  to  its  worthless  tenant  even  a  momentary 
preference  over  such  competitors.  This  wretched  delusion 
seems  now  to  be  rapidly  passing  off.  The  reign  of  common 
sense  is  apparently  about  to  be  restored,  and  whenever  that 
happens,  the  reign  of  Jackson  will  of  course  terminate. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE  INDIANS  AND  THE  MISSIONARIES. 

THIS  is  the  darkest  chapter  in  our  history.  If  it  were  possi 
ble  to  draw  a  veil  over  it,  we  would  gladly  do  so,  for  the  honor 
of  our  country  and  of  humanity.  But  it  is  not.  The  work  of 
iniquity  is  still  in  progress.  The  only  hope  of  arresting  it  before 
it  reaches  its  consummation,  must  be  founded  in  the  awakening 
sense  of  justice  of  the  people.  The  strongest  appeals  have  been 
made  repeatedly  to  the  executive  and  legislative  departments  of 
the  Government,  as  they  are  now  constituted,  but  without  effect. 
The  judiciary  has  nobly  taken  its  stand  in  defence  of  the  right; 
but,  without,  the  co-operation  of  the  executive,  its  interposition 
will  probably  be  ineffectual.  It  is  only  by  a  change  in  the 
character  of  the  Administration,  and  of  the  majorities  in  congress, 
that  we  can  expect  to  redress  this  great  wrong,  and  prevent  the 
6 


42 

final  extermination  of  a  civilized  and  Christian  community.  If 
there  were  no  other  objection  to  our  present  rulers,  this  alone 
ought  to  be  considered  as  decisive  ;  and  it  is  therefore  of  the 
highest  importance  that  the  facts  in  the  case  should  be  constantly 
kept  before  the  public  mind. 

What,  then,  are  these  facts?  The  Cherokee  Indians  occupy 
a  territory  somewhat  smaller  than  the  state  of  Massachusetts, 
and  situated  at  the  point  where  the  boundaries  of  Georgia, 
North  Carolina,  Tennessee  and  Alabama  approach  each  other — 
partly  in  each  of  these  states,  but  principally  in  Georgia.  The 
possession  of  this  territory  has  been  solemnly  guarantied  to  them 
in  a  succession  of  treaties,  first  by  Georgia  herself,  and  subse 
quently  by  the  Government  of  the  United  States,  those  of  the 
latter  class  being  not  less  than  sixteen  in  number.  In  all  these 
treaties,  they  are  expressly  recognized  as  a  distinct  community; 
their  rights  of  property  and  jurisdiction  are  formally  admitted  ; 
and  it  is  stipulated  that  no  citizen  of  the  United  States  shall 
enter  their  territory  without  a  passport.  In  all  these  treaties 
there  are  mutual  concessions  :  the  Cherokees  make  grants  and 
promises  in  exchange  for  the  guaranties  and  the  promises  which 
they  receive.  All  these  grants  and  promises  so  made  by  them 
have  been  faithfully  executed — we  have  had  the  full  benefit  of 
them  ; — it  is  not  even  pretended  that  there  has  been  any  breach 
of  faith.  The  Supreme  Court  has  declared  that  the  treaties  are 
valid  and  binding.  Finally,  the  intercourse  act  of  J802  author 
ises  and  requires  the  President  to  employ,  if  necessary,  the  mili 
tary  force  of  the  country  for  the  purpose  of  securing  to  the  Indi 
ans  the  rights  and  privileges  to  which,  under  these  treaties,  they 
are  entitled. 

Such  are  the  rights  of  the  Indians.  Let  us  look  now  at  the 
manner  in  which  they  have  been  treated  by  Georgia  and  the 
General  Government.  In  a  time  of  perfect  tranquillity — without 
a  pretext  even  for  complaint  against  the  Cherokees — the  state 
of  Georgia,  by  a  public  act  of  her  legislature,  extends  her  juris 
diction  over  them  and  their  territory :  in  other  words,  declares 
that  she  is  herself  the  rightful  sovereign  of  a  territory  of  which 
another  community  has  had  from  time  immemorial  quiet  pos 
session,  and  which  is  guarantied  to  that  community  in  a  series 
of  treaties  by  Georgia  herself  and  the  Union  of  which  Georgia 
forms  a  part.  Truly,  a  modest  pretension  !  But  even  this  is 
not  the  worst.  The  object  is  to  obtain,  not  merely  the  jurisdic 
tion,  but  the  property.  Another  act  is  passed  authorizing  the 
survey  of  all  the  lands  not  in  the  immediate  occupation  of  the 
Indians,  and  their  division  into  lots,  for  the  purpose  (Will  pos 
terity  believe  it  ?)  of  distributing  them  by  lottery  among  t  hein- 


43 

habitants  of  the  state.  In  order  to  render  the  quantity  of  land 
not  included  in  this  distribution  as  small  as  possible,  the  Indi 
ans  are  subjected  to  personal  disabilities,  which  must  render 
their  residence  in  their  ancient  abodes  intolerable,  and,  if  the 
system  is  continued,  will  compel  them  all  to  emigrate. 

Assailed  in  this  unexampled  manner  by  a  stronger  neighbor, 
whose  aggressions  they  are  wholly   unable  to  resist   by  open 
force,  the^  Cherokees  appeal  to  the   General  Government,  and 
invoke  the  execution  of  the  laws  and  treaties  by  which  their 
rights  are  secured.     They  appeal  at  different  times  to  the  three 
great  departments,  the  Executive,  the  Legislative  and  the  Ju 
diciary.     The   Supreme  Court  answers  their    appeal    with  its 
usual  prompt   and  yet  prudent  energy.     In  the  first   case  in 
which  the  question  came  up — that  of  Corn  Tassel,   a  prisoner, 
indicted  for  murder,   a  mandate  was  issued  immediately,  re 
quiring  the    State  of  Georgia  to  appear  in   Court   and   defend 
the  constitutionality  of  her   proceedings.     No  sooner  was  the 
fact  known,  than  the  Legislature  of  Georgia,  which  was  then 
in  session,   passed  a  set  of  resolutions,   denying  entirely  the 
right  of  the  Supreme  Court  to  interfere  with  the  course  of  her 
criminal  jurisdiction,  and  requiring  the   Governor  to  resist  any 
such  interference  by  force.     In  open  contempt  of  the  authority 
of  the  Court,  and  with  a  disregard  for  the  common  feelings  of 
humanity  that  makes  the  blood  run  cold,  the  prisoner — his  trial 
still  pending  in  the   ordinary  course   of  law — was   ordered  to 
execution  and  actually  executed,  or,  in  plain  English,  murdered 
under  the  forms  of  justice.     When  the  case  came  on  at  Wash 
ington,  the  State  of  Georgia  made  default:  the  Court,  with  the 
dignified  moderation  and  correct  sense  of  propriety  which  con 
stantly  marks  their  proceedings,   took  no  notice  of  the  contu 
macious  conduct  of  that  state  which   was  not  regularly  before 
them,   and   decided  the   case  on  a  point  of  form  in  her   favor. 
The  next  year  the  affair  came  up  a  second  time  in  the  case  of 
the  Missionaries,  and  the   Court,  with  a  manly  firmness,  not 
less  honorable  to  them  than  the  steady  impartiality  which  they 
had  exhibited  before,   gave  an  unequivocal  opinion  against  the 
constitutionality  of  the  laws  of  Georgia.     When  that   opinion 
was  sent  down  for  execution,  the  authorities  of  Georgia,  in  their 
usual  spirit  of  insubordination,  refused  to  carry  it  into  effect, 
and  actually  retained  and  now  hold  in  close  confinement,  in 
the  State  Penitentiary  TWO  MINISTERS  OF  RELIGION 
— one  of  them  a  citizen  of  Massachusetts — under  a  process 
which  the  highest  judicial  authority  of  the   United  States  has 
declared  to  be  unconstitutional.     • 

Such  has  been  the  conduct  of  Georgia.     In  the  mean  time 


44 

what  has  the  President  done?  The  President  is  bound  by  the 
constitution  and  his  oath  of  office,  to  see  that  the  laws  and 
treaties  are  faithfully  executed,  and  as  we  have  said,  is  author 
ised  and  required  by  the  Intercourse  Act,  to  employ  if  necessary, 
the  military  force  of  the  country,  for  the  purpose  of  securing  to 
the  Indians  the  personal,  political  and  territorial  rights  guaran 
tied  to  them  by  the  treaties.  What  then  has  the  President 
done? — In  what  way  has  he  interfered  to  check  these  violent 
and  unconstitutional  usurpations  of  power  by  Georgia,  and  to 
sustain  the  Judiciary  department  in  the  rightful  course  of  its 
constitutional  functions?  What  sort  of  countenance  and  aid 
has  he  given  to  the  feeble  and  distressed  remnant  of  a  once 
powerful  people,  who  have  come  to  him,  in  their  utmost  nr.ed— 
to  invoke  not  merely  the  friendship  for  the  beloved  Cherokees, 
of  which  they  had  received  so  many  honied  assurances,  but  the 
PLIGHTED  PUBLIC  FAITH  of  the  Union?  When  thus 
called  upon  by  the  Cherokees,  the  President  informed  them, 
through  his  Secretary  of  War,  that  whether  the  proceedings  of 
Georgia  were  or  were  not  in  accordance  with  the  treaties,  the 
United  States  could  not  and  would  not  undertake  to  oppose 
them.  When  the  Supreme  Court  declared  these  proceedings 
to  be  unconstitutional,  the  President's  Secretary  at  War  at 
tempted  to  refute  the  decision  in  a  long  manifesto,  published  in 
the  semi-official  paper  called  the  Globe. — When  the  State  of 
Georgia,  in  carrying  her  unconstitutional  laws  into  execution, 
invaded  the  territory  of  the  Cherokees,  the  President,  instead 
of  employing  the  military  force  of  the  country  in  their  defence, 
actually  withdrew  a  corps  of  troops  which  was  previously  sta 
tioned  there,  and  left  them  entirely  at  the  mercy  of  their  ene 
mies.  Instead  of  lending  them  his  countenance  and  aid  in  the 
unequal  struggle  in  which  they  are  engaged,  he  is  continually 
laboring,  through  his  agents,  official  and  unofficial,  to  persuade 
them  that  they  are  in  the  wrong,  that  they  cannot  maintain  their 
ground,  and  that  they  would  do  much  better  to  quit  their  im 
provements — abandon  their  cultivated  territory,  and  emigrate 
to  a  distant  wilderness,  two  or  three  thousand  miles  off — in  one 
word,  that  they  would  do  better  to  abjure  civilization  and  Chris 
tianity,  and  return  to  barbarism. — When  the  State  of  Georgia, 
after  setting  at  nought  the  claims  of  common  humanity,  and  the 
majesty  of  the  laws  and  constitution  of  the  country,  went  still 
farther,  and  laid  violent  hands  upon  the  persons  of  MINIS 
TERS  OF  RELIGION,  for  no  other  cause  than  their  zeal 
and  activity  in  their  sacred  calling — the  President  not  only  did 
not,  as  he  was  bound  to  do  by  law — protect  them,  but  actually 
withdrew  from  one  of  them  the  character  of  a  functionary  of 


45 

the  United  States,  which  he  had  held  before,  for  the  express 
purpose  of  exposing  him  entirely  naked  and  defenceless — to  the 
full  sweep  of  the  blows  that  were  aimed  at  him  by  the  brutal 
agents  of  the  tyranny  of  Georgia. 

Such  has  been  the  conduct  of  the  President.  Even  Congress — 
we  blush  for  the  honor  of  the  country,  and  of  humanity,  when 
we  say  it — even  Congress  has  thus  far  been  so  completely  en 
veloped  in  the  toils  of  party  management,  that  it  has  been  found 
impossible  by  the  friends  of  the  country,  notwithstanding  their 
unremitted,  laborious,  energetic  and  most  praiseworthy  efforts, 
to  obtain  even  a  resolution  that  it  was  expedient  to  maintain  the 
Public  Faith  of  the  Union. 

Such  are  the  facts  in  the  case  of  the  Indians  and  Missionaries  : 
Let  us  now  very  briefly  consider  the  character  of  these  proceed 
ings  under  the  various  aspects,  in  which  they  naturally  present 
themselves :— their  PERFIDY: — their  VIOLENCE: — their 
MEANNESS  :— their  BRUTALITY  :— the  alarming  resistance 
to  the  constitutional  authority  of  the  Supreme  Court  : — the  re 
volting  and  outrageous  defiance  of  the  moral  and  religious  feel 
ings  of  the  community. 

I.  PERFIDY. — A  whole  series  of  solemn  treaties  negoci- 
ated  and  concluded,  successively,  duiing  a  (period  of  fifty  years, 
under  all  the  Administrations  that  have  held  the  power  of  the 
government  since  its  organization,  are  openly  violated,  without 
the  slightest  pretext  or  apology.  It  is  not  pretended  that  we  were 
surprised  or  forced  into  the  conclusion  of  any  of  them.  They 
were  free,  fair  and  equal  compacts,  or  rather  they  were  corn- 
pacts  in  which  the  real  advantage  was  entirely  on  our  side.  It 
is  not  pretended  that  they  have  not  been  observed  in  good  faith 
by  the  Indians.  The  lands  which  they  granted,  have  been  oc 
cupied  and  settled — the  stipulations  in  our  favor  have  all  been 
executed — we  have  had  the  benefit  of  them  to  the  last  fraction. 
It  is  riot  even  seriously  pretended  that  the  treaties  were  informal, 
although  if  such  were  the  fact,  it  would  furnish  no  excuse  for 
the  violation  of  a  bona  fide  engagement,  of  which  we  have  had 
the  benefit.  But  it  is  not,  as  we  have  said,  seriously  pretended 
that  the  treaties  are  even  informal.  An  objection  of  this  des 
cription  was  indeed  put  forward  by  Georgia,  who  meanly  attempt 
ed  to  pick  a  flaw  in  the  form  of  an  instrument  of  which  she  has 
had  the  benefit,  for  the  sake  of  escaping  from  the  payment  of 
the  consideration  ;  but  the  Supreme  Court  has  put  the  extin 
guisher  at  once  upon  this  feeble  and  unmanly  effort.  There  is 
not  even  the  poor  and  stale  plea  of  state  necessity.  It  is  not 
pretended  that  the  observance  of  the  treaties  would  be  produc 
tive  of  any  material  inconvenience  either  to  Georgia  or  the 


46 

United  States.  The  immediate  motive  for  violating  them  is,  to 
procure  for  Georgia  the  opportunity  of  distributing  the  Cherokee 
land  by  lottery  among  her  citizens.  The  proceeding  is  an  act 
of  open,  avowed,  unblushing,  deliberate,  premeditated  NA 
TIONAL  PERFIDY. 

Is  this  a  light  thing  ?  Are  the  people  of  the  United  States 
prepared,  by  continuing  their  present  agents  in  power,  to  give 
their  sanction  to  and  take  upon  themselves  the  responsibility 
for  this  monstrous  abuse  of  authority  ?  We  answer  for  them 
boldly,  emphatically  and  decidedly,  NO  ;  a  thousand  times 
over,  NO.  The  PUBLIC  FAITH  MUST  AND  SHALL 
BE  PRESERVED.  The  unprincipled  and  reckless  tools 
of  party,  who  are  endeavoring  to  fasten  upon  our  national 
character  the  stamp  of  indelible  dishonor,  by  the  violation  of 
these  treaties,  must  and  shall  give  way  to  men  who  have  at 
least  the  common  honesty  to  feel  and  acknowledge  the  obliga 
tion  of  a  contract. 

2.  VIOLENCE  and  MEANNESS.  Independently  of  the 
positive  engagements  which  we  are  under  to  the  Indians  ; 
were  there  no  relation  between  them  arid  us,  but  that  which 
is  created  by  the  law  of  nature  and  the  fact  of  neighborhood: — 
the  proceedings  towards  them  are  such,  that  they  can  hardly  be 
paralleled  even  in  the  history  of  barbarous  nations.  There 
no  doubt  is  now  and  always  has  been  a  great  deal  of  injustice  and 
violence  in  the  world.  Wars  have  been  carried  on  ; — states 
have  been  invaded  and  conquered  for  the  mere  gratification  of 
personal  ambition.  In  turning  over  the  blood-stained  rolls  of 
history,  the  friends  of  humanity  must  too  frequently 


-Learn  with  horrent  brow  to  rate 


What  millions  died  that  Caesar  might  be  great. 

But  in  almost  all  the  instances  on  record,  even  of  gross  and 
substantially  unprovoked  aggression,  there  is  at  least  some 
pretext  put  forward  by  the  aggressor,  which,  if  true,  would  in 
some  degree  excuse  the  outrage.  Even  in  the  celebrated  case 
of  the  partition  of  Poland,  which  in  form  approaches  perhaps 
more  nearly  to  the  present  than  any  other  ;  a  case  in  which  as 
in  this,  three  prosperous  and  powerful  states  combined  to  par 
cel  out  among  themselves,  the  territory  of  a  weak  arid  unoffend 
ing  neighbor,  there  was  at  least  a  pretence  of  state  necessity. 
The  transaction  was  justified  by  the  partitioning  powers,  on 
the  ground  of  the  inconvenience  and  danger  which  they  suffer 
ed  from  the  troubles  which  habitually  disturbed  the  interior  of 
Poland.  The  proclamations  that  were  issued,  are  filled  with 
loud  complaints  of  injuries  and  insults  received  from  that  dan- 


47 

gerous  government.  They  breathe  an  edifying  tone  of  justice 
and  humanity — Russia,  Austria  and  Prussia,  if  you  believe 
them,  are  three  peaceable  and  well-disposed  powers,  who  have 
combined  to  abate  a  common  nuisance.  All  this  we  know, 
was  false  and  hollow ;  but  it  showed  at  least  some  sense  of 
shame  in  the  parties  to  the  outrage  ;  some  disposition  to  as 
sume  a  virtue  although  they  had  it  not  : — to  discharge  that 
tribute  of  hypocrisy  which  vice  habitually  pays  to  virtue.  But 
that  a  state,  claiming  to  be  civilized  and  Christian,  should,  in  a 
time  of  profound  peace,  without  even  a  pretence  of  injury  or 
provocation,  appropriate  to  itself  the  sovereignty  over  a  weak 
er  neighboring-  community,  destroy  its  political  existence,  sub 
ject  its  members  to  the  most  atrocious  indignities,  and  distribute 
their  territory  by  lottery  among  its  own  people  ! — This,  we 
confess,  appears  to  us  to  be  an  entirely  new  case.  We  have 
paid  some  attention  to  political  and  diplomatic  history,  but  we 
have  met  with  no  other  exactly  like  it. 

When  we  say  that  Georgia  puts  forward  no  pretences  in 
justification  of  her  proceedings,  we  mean  that  she  makes  no 
allegations  of  injury  or  fraud  on  the  other  side,  which,  if  well 
founded,  would  justify  her  course.  The  attempts  at  apology 
which  she  has  in  fact  made  are  of  such  a  kind  as  rather  ag 
gravate  than  extenuate  the  injustice  of  her  conduct.  She 
says,  for  example,  that  when  she  took  possession  of  her  terri 
tory,  she  found  the  aboriginal  inhabitants  barbarians,  and  be 
came  immediately  their  rightful  sovereign,  because  a  civilized 
community  possesses  a  natural  right  of  sovereignty  over  its 
barbarous  neighbors.  The  right  thus  acquired  she  ceded 
away  in  a  series  of  solemn  treaties.  She  now  claims  the  right 
of  rescinding  these  treaties,  and  resuming  the  sovereignty  which 
had  been  granted  away  by  them.  Why?  Because  the  Indi 
ans  are  now  civilized.  Such — if  our  readers  will  believe  us — 
is  the  actual,  bona  fide  intent  and  meaning  of  the  language  of 
the  judges  of  Georgia,  assembled  in  convention  to  decide  upon 
the  case  of  Tassel.  Are  the  [authorities  of  Georgia  in  earnest, 
or  are  they  sharpening  the  sting  of  oppression  by  a  bitter  and 
criminal  mockery  ?  We  will  not  trust  ourselves  to  comment 
seriously  upon  such  reasoning.  It  would  be  impossible  to 
keep  within  the  limits  of  moderation  which  are  fixed  by  the 
dignity  of  the  parties  to  this  great  cause. 

The  attack  of  Georgia  upon  the  Cherokees  is  therefore  des 
titute  even  of  a  plausible  pretence  of  justice.  And  let  it  be 
observed  that  her  pretensions  extend  much  farther  than  they 
could  be  carried  by  conquest  in  the  ordinary  forms  of  civilized 
warfare.  The  law  of  nations  is  not  understood  to  permit  a 


48 

conquering  people  to  take  advantage  of  its  success  for  the  pur 
pose  of  appropriating  the  territory  and  reducing  to  suhjection 
the  persons  of  the  conquered.  These  are  the  practices  of  bar 
barous  communities  : — they  were  the  practices  of  the  northern 
hordes  that  overran  the  Roman  empire.  The  principles  of 
public  law,  as  established  by  the  practice  of  civilized  nations, 
only  permit  the  conqueror  to  proceed  until  he  has  reduced  his 
enemy  to  terms,  and  obtained  satisfaction  for  the  injury  which 
he  lias  suffered.  If  he  go  beyond  this,  he  puts  himself  in  the 
wrong.  It  appears,  theiefore,  that  Georgia,  in  a  time  of  pro 
found  peace,  and  without  even  a  pretence  of  provocation,  has 
proceeded,  in  her  aggressions  upon  the  Cherokees  infinitely  be 
yond  the  point  which  would  have  been  authorized  by  actual 
conquest,  in  a  war  waged  for  a  sufficient  cause. 

And  then  the  meanness — the  paltry,  dastardly,  pitiful  meanness 
of  the  whole  transaction.  A  man  of  real  power,  and  who  has 
withal  a  single  spark  of  the  lofty  and  generous  spirit  which  so 
naturally  accompanies  a  consciousness  of  strength,  scorns  to 
use  his  advantages,  either  in  his  public  or  private  concerns,  for 
the  purpose  of  crushing  the  weak  and  unoffending.  He  would 
feel  himself  dishonored  forever  by  such  conduct.  So  true  is  this 
sentiment  to  nature  that  we  find  it  exhibiting  itself  even  in 
children.  An  overgrown  lubber,  who  should  undertake  to 
treat  with  harshness  an  unoffending  school-fellow  of  smaller 
size,  would  be  hooted  out  of  every  village  in  the  country.  But 
what  do  we  see  in  this  affair?  Three  or  four  prosperous  and 
powerful  states,  numbering  on  an  average  not  less  than  half  a 
million  souls  each,  backed  by  a  Union  of  twenty-four  sove 
reign  states  and  thirteen  million  inhabitants,  are  pouncing  with 
all  their  combined  strength  upon  a  little  peaceful  society,  com 
posed  of  some  fifteen  thousand  persons,  incapable,  of  couise,  of 
offering  the  least  resistance,  or  of  defending  themselves  in  any 
way  but  by  an  appeal  to  the  sixteen  treaties  in  which  these  very 
aggressors  have  solemnly  guarantied  their  political  existence 
and  the  integrity  of  their  territory.  Is  there  an  honorable  man 
in  the  country  whose  cheek  is  not  on  fire  with  shame  when  he 
feels  that,  as  a  citizen  of  the  United  States  he  is  unconsciously  a 
party  to  such  a  transaction?  But  even  this  is  not  the  worst. 

3.  BRUTALITY.— Mean  and  pitiful  as  it  is  in  all  cases 
for  an  individual  or  a  nation  to  abuse  power  for  the  purpose  of 
injuring  the  feeble,  there  is  in  this  affair  a  feature  of  a  still  more 
revolting  character.  These  Cherokees  are  not  merely  a  peace 
ful  and  unoffending  little  community,  but  they  are  a  community 
of  a  very  peculiar  and  interesting  character.  They  are  among 
the  last  remnants  of  the  once  powerful  native  race  that  in  former 


49 

days  occupied  the  whole  country:  they  are  the  only  tribe  of  this 
great  family  that  has  made  any  considerable  advances   in   civ 
ilization.     It  has  often  been  doubted  whether  it  were  possible  to 
induce  these  natives  to  assume  the  habits  that  belong  to  Euro 
pean  culture;  and,  until  within  a  short  time,  the  general  opinion 
was  decidedly  in  the  negative.     For  two  centuries  in  succes 
sion  the  government  and  people  of  the  United  States  have  been 
urging,  entreating,  preaching,   praying,  compelling  them,  as  it 
were,  to  come  within  the  pale,  but   all  in  vain.     At  length,  a 
single  tribe  takes  us  at  our  word,  and  comes  in.     They  adopt 
our  religion,  form  of  government,  dress,  manners  and  customs; 
learn  our  language,  make  an  alphabet  for  their  own;  rise,  in 
short,  very  nearly  to  a  level  with  ourselves  in  all  the   arts   and 
accomplishments  of  civilized  life.    A  community  which  has  risen 
in  this  way  from  civilization  to  barbarism,  in  the  life-time  of  a 
single  generation,  is  a  great  moral  and  political  curiosity.     Their 
history  forms  a  very  valuable  addition  to  the  experiments  that 
have  been  made    upon  the  fortunes   of  our  race.     Every  en 
lightened    man   would,  for   this  reason — independently   of  any 
other  circumstance — watch  their  further  progress  with  peculiar 
interest,  and  would  anxiously  desire  that  no  unfortunate  acci 
dent  might  interfere  with  it.     How,  then,  do  we  treat  them? 
How  do   we — a  civilized  and  Christian   community — conduct 
ourselves  towards  this  tribe  of  barbarians,  whom  we  have  suc 
ceeded  in  converting  into  a  civilized  and  Christian  community 
like   ourselves?     Georgia  says  to  them,  Gentlemen,   we   have 
succeeded  in  converting  you  from  a  tribe  of  barbarians  into  a 
civilized  and  Christian  community  like  ourselves,  and  to  show 
you  the  satisfaction  we  feel  at  your   success  and  our  own,  we 
proceed  to  appropriate  your  country,  confiscate  your  property, 
subject  your  persons  to  atrocious  indignities,  and  destroy  your 
political  existence.     They  appeal  for  redress  to  the  government 
of  the  United  States.       The  government  tells   them — What? 
That    it   cannot    and    will    not    protect   them — that,    whether 
Georgia  be  right  or  wrong,  she  must  have  her   way,  and  that 
they  had  much  better   quit  their  country,  emigrate  to  a  distant 
wilderness  on  the  borders  of  the  Red  River,  and  there  resume 
their  former  modes  of  life.     Strange,  astonishing — incredible 
as  it  may  appear,  after  we  have  labored  two  centuries  to  civilize 
these  Indians,  and  have  at  last   succeeded  with  a  single  tribe, 
the  first  salutation  which  we  address  to  them  is  a  recommenda 
tion — what   do   we  say? — a  peremptory   injunction,  issued  in 
contempt  of  a  whole  series  of  treaties,  to  return  to  barbarism. 
And  all  this  for  the  noble  purpose  of  distributing  a  few  more 
acres  of  land  by  lottery  among  the  inhabitants  of  a  state  where 
there  is  now  hardly  one  white  family  to  the  square  mile  ! 


50 

4.  But  the  most  important  and  alarming  aspect  under  which 
we  can  look  at  these  proceedings,  is  in  their  relation  to  the 
constitutional  authority  of  the  supreme  court.  We  have  now 
reached  that  fearful  crisis  in  our  history,  when  a  few  months 
will  decide  whether  the  constitution  and  with  it  the  Union  of 
the  states  is  to  stand  or  fall.  It  is  useless  to  attempt  to  conceal 
from  ourselves  that,  if  Georgia  carries  her  point  against  the 
supreme  court  in  this  great  case,  the  authority  of  that  tribunal, 
and  with  it  the  basis  of  all  our  institutions,  is  destroyed  forever. 
The  decision  of  this  question  will  depend  upon  the  result  of  the 
election  of  President.  At  the  next  term  of  the  supreme  court 
to  be  held  at  Washington  next  winter,  a  return  will  be  made 
of  the  refusal  of  Georgia  to  execute  the  decree  of  last  winter, 
and  the  supreme  court  will  then,  agreeably  to  the  provisions  of  the 
statute,  address  a  precept  to  the  marshal  of  Georgia,  requiring 
him  to  execute  the  decree  himself,  and  release  the  missionaries 
from  the  penitentiary.  Should  we  have  in  office  at  that  time  a 
President  who  has  the  intelligence  to  know,  and  the  manly 
firmness  to  do,  his  duty,  Georgia  will  not  venture  to  resist:  the 
missionaries  will  be  liberated: — the  Cherokees  will  be  main 
tained  in  the  rights  secured  to  them  by  treaty,  and  the  whole 
affair  will  pass  off  without  further  trouble.  If  the  present  in 
cumbent  should  be  re-elected,  and  Georgia  should  feel  that 
she  is  sustained  and  encouraged  by  the  very  power  whose  duty 
it  is  to  arrest  her  mad  course,  she  will  probably  resist: — Jack 
son  will  refuse  to  employ  the  military  force  of  the  Union  in  aid 
of  the  court,  as  he  has  already  refused  to  employ  it  in  the  ex 
ecution  of  the  intercourse  act: — the  decree  will  not  be  executed: 
— the  reign  of  law  will  terminate :— that  of  terror  and  violence  will 
commence;  and  with  it  will  commence  for  us  the  long  series  of 
internal  commotions,  proscriptions,  confiscations, — wars,  foreign 
and  domestic,  with  all  their  frightful  accompaniments  and  con 
sequences, — which  make  up  the  history  of  most  other  nations, 
and  from  which,  in  the  goodness  of  Providence,  we  have  thus 
far  been  almost  wholly  exempt. 

How  fearful  to  reflect  that  such  immense  national  interests  are 
staked  upon  the  almost  fortuitous  results  of  a  popular  election, 
which  is  to  take  place  within  six  weeks  throughout  the  whole 
country  ! — Are  the  wise  and  good — the  fathers  of  families,  who 
wish  to  bequeath  to  their  children  the  same  blessings  which 
they  inherited  themselves  from  a  virtuous  and  patriotic  ancestry, 
sufficiently  alive  to  the  emergency  of  the  crisis?  Are  they 
straining  every  nerve  with  the  intense  anxiety  that  men  ought 
to  feel  who  know  that  every  thing  valuable  is  at  hazard? 

5.  There  is  still  one  consideration  connected  with  this  sub- 


51 

ject,  more  solemn  than  any  to  which  we  have  hitherto  adverted. 
We  have  seen  in  this  affair  the  authorities  of  Georgia  and  the 
President  of  the  United  States  combining  to  violate  the  respect 
due  to  the  sacred  character  of  a  minister  of  religion,  with  a 
grossness  hardly  to  be  paralleled  even  in  the  history  of  barba 
rous  communities.  We  have  seen  the  MISSIONARIES,  af 
ter  having  been  not  merely  authorized,  but  invited,  encouraged 
and  urged  by  the  government  to  prosecute  their  labors  of  love 
and  piety  in  these  remote  regions,  suddenly  torn  from  their 
homes — dragged  IN  CHAINS  and  at  the  imminent  risk  of 
their  lives,  through  the  wilderness,  subjected  to  a  mock  trial, 
and  then  committed  to  the  PENITENTIARY— and  all  this 
without  their  having  been  guilty  of  the  slightest  offence  against 
the  public  peace  or  the  laws  and  constitution  of  the  country. 
We  have  seen  this  course  of  more  than  brutal  violence  continued 
after  the  highest  judicial  authority  of  the  country  had  solemnly 
declared  their  innocence. 

Is  this  again  a  trifling  thing?  Will  the  Christian  people  of 
the  United  States  give  their  sanction,  by  placing  him  again  in 
office,  to  the  conduct  of  a  President  who  treats  the  ministers  of 
the  Christian  religion  with  open  outrage — loads  them  with  chains 
— drags  them  from  their  peaceful  homes  to  prison — commits 
them  in  defiance  of  law  like  common  criminals  to  the  Peniten 
tiary,  and  violently  keeps  them  there  against  the  decision  of 
the  highest  law  authority  affirming  their  innocence?  For 
throughout  this  whole  business  we  are  to  recollect  that  the  real 
difficulty  lies  not  in  the  perversity  of  Georgia,  who  would  not 
dare  to  act  unless  she  felt  herself  supported  at  head-quarters, 
but  in  the  contumacy  of  the  President,  who  tacitly  and  openly 
bears  her  out  in  all  her  violence.  Will  the  people  then  sanction 
these  proceedings  by  continuing  the  President  in  office?  Once 
more  we  answer  for  them  NO — a  thousand  times  over,  NO. 

On  this  topic  it  would  be  vain  and  idle  to  enlarge:  The  min- 
isters  of  ihe  Christian  religion  detained  against  law  like  common 
criminals  in  the  Penitentiary!  All  the  eloquence  of  Demosthenes 
and  Patrick  Henry  could  add  nothing  to  the  effect  of  such  a  sen 
tence.  Gen.  Jackson  will  feel  it  to  his  cost  at  the  polls. 

One  of  these  ministers  of  religion,  Dr.  Butler,  is  a  citizen  of 
this  Commonwealth.  He  owes  allegiance  to  Massachusetts, 
and  Massachusetts  in  turn  is  bound  to  protect  him  at  home  and 
abroad  from  illegal  violence.  He  is  now  violently  detained  in 
prison  by  the  authorities  of  Georgia,  in  defiance  of  a  decree  of 
the  Supreme  Court  declaring  his  innocence.  If  this  violence 
should  be  continued  after  the  Court  shall  have  ordered  its  own 
officers  to  execute  the  decree,  and  the  civil  process  shall  be 


52 

entirely  at  an  end,  will  it  not  be  time  for  Massachusetts  too  to 
begin  to  think  of  her  reserved  rights'?  If  the  Government  of 
the  United  States  cannot  or  will  not  protect  our  most  respected 
citizens  in  the  exercise  of  the  highest  and  most  solemn  functions 
from  the  Penitentiary,  will  it  not  be  time  for  us  to  begin  to  think 
of  taking  their  protection  into  our  own  hands? 

But  we  must  here  finish  this  too  long  chapter.  We  cannot 
conclude  without  expressing  our  admiration  of  the  noble  firm 
ness  which  has  been  shown  by  the  Cherokees,  in  refusing  to 
accept  the  insidious  proposals  to  emigrate,  which  have  been 
made  to  them  by  the  General  Government.  With  the  fragments 
of  sixteen  violated  treaties  scattered  round  them,  is  it  not  some 
thing  like  mockery  for  the  government  of  the  United  States 
even  to  ask  them  to  conclude  a  seventeenth?  Can  it,  in  good 
earnest,  reasonably  be  supposed  that  they  would  be  tempted 
by  any  terms,  however  apparently  favorable?  No; — let  them 
perish — if  it  must  be  so — in  defence  of  their  rights — by  their 
fire-sides — on  the  tombs  of  their  fathers  !  Let  them  fall — if  it 
must  be  so — as  so  many  of  the  best  and  bravest  of  all  nations 
and  ages — as  so  many  of  our  own  forefathers,  fell  before  them — 
fighting  manfully  the  good  fight  of  innocence  against  oppres 
sion  !  How  can  they  ever  find  a  nobler  or  a  happier  way  of 
passing  from  the  troubled  scenes  of  this  transitory  world  to  the 
permanent  glories  of  a  better? — But  we  do  not  apprehend  this 
result.  The  supreme  court,  with  a  manly  firmness  not  inferior 
to  their  own,  has  already  declared  in  their  favor:  the  People  are 
preparing  to  sustain  the  sentence  at  the  polls: — the  agents  of 
Georgia,  who  have  bullied  and  blustered  at  their  ease  while 
they  knew  that  there  was  no  danger,  will  make  great  haste  to 
draw  in  their  horns,  when  they  find  themselves  encountered  by 
the  power  of  the  United  States  in  the  hands  of  a  President  who 
knows  and  will  do  his  dutv.  The  Cherokees  will  be  supported 
in  their  rightful  pretensions.  THE  PUBLIC  FAITH  MUST 
AND  WILL  BE  PRESERVED. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

THE  BANK. 


THE  reputation  and  fortune  of  the  persons  composing  the  ad 
ministration  of  any  government  seem  to  be,  for  the  time  being, 
identified  with  the  welfare  of  the  nation  ;  and,  by  whatever 
means  they  may  have  obtained  power,  one  would  suppose  that 


53 

they  would  naturally  exercise  it,  in  their  own  interest,  with  a 
view  to  the  public  good.     It  is,  therefore,  almost  as  difficult  to 
comprehend  as  it  is  to  excuse  the  sort  of  demoniac  frenzy  with 
which  our  present  rulers  have  been,  ever  since  their  introduc 
tion  into  office,  laboring  to  destroy  ALL  the  great  principles  of 
the  national  prosperity,  and  to  subvert  ALL  the  most  important 
and  useful  institutions  of  government.     In  the  preceding  chap 
ters,  we  have  seen  them  carrying  confusion  and  corruption  into 
all  the  departments  of  the  public  service,  by  treating  the  offices, 
from  the  highest  to  the  lowest,  as  the  SPOILS  OF  VICTORY: 
—arresting  the  progress  of  DOMESTIC   INDUSTRY   and 
INTERNAL  IMPROVEMENT:— prostrating  the  HONOR 
of  the  country  at  the  feet  of  the  British  ministry: — openly  vio 
lating  the  PUBLIC  FAITH  with  the   Indian  tribes:— outrag 
ing  DECENCY  and   RELIGION  in  their  treatment  of  the 
missionaries  : — shaking    the    authority    of   the    SUPREME 
COURT  to  its  very  foundation  by   abetting  the  proceedings  of 
Georgia;  and  by  the  abuse  of  the  appointing  and  veto   powers 
in  a  great  measure  neutralizing  the  constitutional  action  of  both 
branches  of  CONGRESS.     To  complete  the  picture,  we  have 
now  to   see   them   aiming   a  blow  at  the  BANK    OF    THE 
UNITED  STATES,  which,  if  not   checked  in  time,   as   we 
confidently  trust  that  it  will  be,  by  the  returning  good  sense  and 
patriotic  feeling  of  the  people,  will  throw  the   CURRENCY* 
into  disorder,  and   condemn  a  large   proportion  of  the  most  in 
dustrious  and  honorable  citizens  among  us  to  immediate  BANK 
RUPTCY. 

We  shall  not  undertake  to  say  which  of  the  various  impolitic, 
illegal  and  unconstitutional  proceedings  of  the  present  Adminis 
tration  will  prove,  in  the  end,  most  injurious  to  the  country; 
but  the  one  which  will  he  attended  with  the  greatest  amount  of 
immediate  and  therefore  certain  and  irremediable  evil,  is  prob 
ably  the  destruction  of  the  Bank.  Fortunately  this  is  also  the 
one  which  more  than  any  other  has  engaged  the  public  atten 
tion.  The  merits  of  the  question  have  been,  for  two  years  past, 
discussed  in  every  form,  and  the  importance  of  sustaining  the 
Bank  set  forth  with  such  clearness  of  illustration  and  irresistible 
force  of  argument  in  reviews  and  other  journals,  reports  of  com 
mittees  and  speeches  of  members  of  congress,  that  there  is 
really  no  room  or  excuse  for  mistake.  We  may  mention  par 
ticularly,  as  one  of  the  ablest  arguments  that  have  appeared 
upon  this  subject,  the  speech  delivered  by  Mr.  Webster  in  the 
senate  upon  the  reception  of  the  veto  message,  and  which  has 
lately  been  reported  for  the  newspapers.  After  so  many  ela 
borate  and  copious  discussions,,  it  may  almost  appear  superflu- 


54 

ous  to  treat  this  subject  in  the  cursory  form  which  belongs  to 
these  essays.  But  it  ought  not  to  be  wholly  omitted  in  a  gen 
eral  review  of  the  conduct  of  the  Administration;  and  if  our 
hasty  suggestions  should  affect  only  one  mind  that  has  not  yet 
been  reached  by  the  logic  and  eloquence  of  abler  champions 
of  the  good  cause,  our  efforts  may  not,  in  the  present  divided 
state  of  the  people,  be  without  a  salutary  and  important  in 
fluence. 

The  National  Bank,  though  not  properly  apolitical  institution, 
is  one  of  the  most  important  and  valuable  instruments  that  are 
used  in  the  practical  administration  of  the  government.  It 
serves  three  great  purposes: — It  is  the  financial  agent  of  the 
Executive  for  all  its  receipts  and  payments:  It  aids  in  regulating 
the  currency,  as  far  as  this  is  composed  of  paper,  by  acting  as 
a  check  upon  the  local  banks,  and  distributing  through  the 
Union  a  safe  and  uniform  emission  of  notes:  and  thirdly:  It 
performs,  but  in  a  much  more  effectual  and  extensive  way  than 
any  similar  institution,  the  usual  functions  of  a  Bank,  in  ac 
commodating  the  public  with  loans  of  capital.  For  each  and 
all  of  these  purposes,  the  existence  of  the  National  Bank  is,  in  a 
manner,  indispensable;  and,  were  it  even  possible  to  get  along 
without  it  (as  it  certainly  would  not  be),  the  sudden  destruction 
of  the  existing  Bank,  under  the  present  economical  circum 
stances  of  the  country,  would  be  attended  with  an  extent  of 
individual  suffering  and  loss  of  property  unexampled  perhaps 
in  the  history  of  civilized  communities. 

When  the  first  bank  was  first  proposed,  soon  after  the  adoption 
of  the  present  constitution,  the  question  was  started  whether  the 
government  possessed,  under  that  instrument,  the  power  to  es 
tablish  such  an  institution.  The  political  parties  of  the  day 
were  divided  upon  this,  as  they  were  upon  most  other  questions 
that  came  before  the  nation, — not  so  much  perhaps  because  the 
matter  was  in  itself  very  doubtful,  as  because  parties  that  exist 
on  other  accounts  seek,  and  of  course  find,  in  every  new  topic 
a  new  occasion  for  difference.  The  party  which  had  been  ori 
ginally  opposed  to  the  Bank  possessed  the  almost  undisputed 
control  of  the  legislative  and  executive  departments  of  the  gov 
ernment  when  the  charter  expired,  and  it  was  not  at  the  time 
renewed.  Experience,  however,  soon  satisfied  the  most  intelli 
gent  and  powerful  men  among  them  that  their  theories  on  the 
subject  were  erroneous,  and  that  a  Bank  was  absolutely  indis 
pensable  to  the  safe  and  prosperous  conduct  of  the  public  affairs. 
Within  a  few  years  after  the  expiration  of  the  charter  of  the 
former  one,  another  was  accordingly  established,  with  a 
larger  capital  and  more  extended  powers.  Mr.  Madison, 


55 

then  President  of  the  United  States,  and  one  of  the  most  active 
opponents  of  the  other  Bank,  gave  to  this  his  cordial  approbation. 
In  the  mean  time,  the  institution  had  received  the  sanction  of 
the  Supreme  Court  ;  and  the  two  great  parties  which  had  for 
merly  divided  the  country,  and  which  comprehended  all  the  ac 
tive  citizens,  being  both  in  favor  of  it,  it  went  into  operation 
with  the  unanimous  assent  and  concurrence  of  the  whole 
people. 

The  results  have  been  such  as  might  have  been  expected 
from  such  auspices.  The  currency  of  the  country,  which,  at 
the  time  when  the  Bank  was  established,  was  in  a  state  of  utter 
and  apparently  irremediable  disorder,  was  rapidly  restored  to 
the  sound  and  healthy  condition,  in  which  it  has  been  ever  since 
and  is  now.  The  agency  of  the  Bank,  if  not  the  only  cause 
that  operated  in  the  production  of  this  most  salutary  change, 
was  unquestionably  one  of  the  most  important  and  effective. 
Having  lent  its  aid  in  reforming  the  currency,  the  Bank  enter 
ed  on  its  regular  course  of  official  duty,  which  it  has  ever  since 
pursued  with  exemplary  success.  As  the  fiscal  agent  of  the 
Executive,  it  has  exhibited  a  remarkable  intelligence,  efficiency, 
energy,  and,  above  all,  INDEPENDENCE.  This— as  we 
shall  presently  see — has  been  its  real  crime.  As  the  regula 
tor  of  the  currency,  it  has  furnished  the  country  with  a  safe, 
convenient  and  copious  circulating  medium,  and  prevented  the 
mischiefs  that  would  otherwise  result  from  the  insecurity  of  the 
local  banks.  As  a  mere  institution  for  loaning  money,  it  has 
been,  as  it  were,  the  Providence  of  the  less  wealthy  sections 
of  the  Union.  It  has  distributed  with  unsparing  hand  almost 
the  whole  of  its  vast  capital  throughout  the  western  states, 
where  capital,  at  any  moderate  rate  of  interest,  would  be  other 
wise  nearly  inaccessible.  The  extent  of  the  benefit  conferred 
in  this  way,  not  on  the  west  only,  but  on  the  whole  country, 
will  never  be  fully  appreciated  except,  should  that  unfortunately 
happen,  by  its  loss.  Through  its  dealings  in  exchange  at 
home  and  abroad,  the  Bank  has  materially  facilitated  the  opera 
tions  of  our  foreign  and  domestic  trade.  The  important  advan 
tages  which  have  thus  been  derived  from  this  institution  have 
been  unattended  by  any  countervailing  evil.  As  its  term  ad 
vanced,  and  its  officers  acquired  additional  experience,  it  has 
been  constantly  gaining  on  the  public  favor.  There  has  been 
no  suspicion  of  abuse;  not  a  lisp  of  complaint  has  been  heard 
on  any  account  throughout  the  country;  and  since  it  has  been 
thought  necessary,  for  electioneering  purposes,  to  raise  a  clamor 
against  the  institution,  it  is  really  curious,  as  well  as  melancho 
ly,  to  see  how  low  the  party  managers  have  been  content  to 


56 

stoop — to  what  wretched  and  pitiful  shifts  they  have  been  driv 
en,  in  order  to  find  any  thing  that  could  be  tortured,  by  any  art 
or  sophistry,  into  the  appearance  of  rnal-administration. 

Such  was  the  condition  of  the  Bank,  and  such  the  state  of 
the  public  opinion  in  regard  to  it  when,  in  an  evil  hour,  the 
reins  of  government  were  entrusted  to  the  hands  of  our  present 
rulers.  The  hostility  of  Jackson  to  the  institution  was  not 
known,  or  known  only  to  confidential  friends,  previously  to  his 
election,  nor  was  it  exhibited  in  the  inaugural  address:  but  in 
his  first  message  to  Congress,  he  came  out  with  an  open  denun 
ciation  of  the  Bank  as  it  is  now  constituted,  and  a  recommenda 
tion  of  another,  apparently  of  a  totally  different  kind,  the  par 
ticular  character  of  which,  as  it  has  not  been  explained,  it 
would  of  course  be  useless  to  discuss.  The  motives  which  led 
to  this  extraordinary  proceeding,  are  not  distinctly  known. — 
When  we  connect  the  time  of  its  appearance  with  that  of  the 
transactions  in  relation  to  the  branch  at  Portsmouth,  where  the 
independence  of  the  officers  of  the  Bank  defeated  the  attempts 
of  the  executive  to  make  it  subservient  to  party  purposes,  it 
seems  not  improbable,  especially  considering  the  well-known 
character  of  Jackson,  that  we  are  to  look  to  these  transactions 
as  the  moving  cause  of  his  determination  to  destroy  the  institu 
tion.  We  have  accordingly  stated  above  that  the  INDEPEN 
DENCE  of  the  president  and  directors  of  the  bank  is  their 
only  real  crime.  It  is  probable,  however,  that  the  party  mana 
gers  also  calculated  that  they  should  gain  something  for  elec 
tioneering  purposes,  by  endeavoring  to  revive  the  prejudices 
that  were  formerly  entertained  on  this  subject  by  the  old  re 
publican  party,  and  by  making  use  of  it  as  a  pretext  for  appeal 
ing  to  the  worst  passions  of  the  uninformed  part  of  the  people. 
This  motive  is  as  exactly  in  keeping  with  the  character  of  Van 
Buren  as  the  former  one  is  with  that  of  his  master.  The  im 
mediate  interest  of  the  local  banks  may  also  perhaps  have  been 
brought  to  bear  in  a  slight  degree  on  the  question.  Such 
taken  together  were  probably  the  causes  of  this  proceeding  ; 
and  the  extent  to  which  each  may  have  operated  in  producing 
the  result,  we  must  leave  to  the  reader  to  decide.  At  all 
events,  the  ostensible  motives  assigned  in  the  first  message,  in 
the  reports  of  the  committee  of  the  House  of  Representatives, 
in  the  Veto  message,  and  in  the  party  newspapers,  were  obvious 
ly  put  forward  merely  ad  captandum,  as  we  shall  presently  have 
occasion  to  show. 

The  denunciation  in  the  first  message  to  Congress  was  un 
accompanied  by  any  reasons,  excepting  the  naked  and  shame 
less  assertion,  that  the  Bank  had  not  accomplished  the  purposes 


57 

for  which  it  was  instituted.  In  the  second  message  to  Congress, 
delivered  a  year  after,  the  denunciation  was  renewed  in  the 
same  laconic  style,  and  it  was  repeated  for  the  third  time  in 
the  message  that  was  sent  to  Congress  at  the  opening  of  the 
last  session.  In  the  mean  while,  however,  the  members  of  the 
cabinet  had  been  changed,  and  there  was  a  pretty  important 
new  feature  in  the  aspect  of  the  Executive  communications  on 
this  subject.  On  the  day  following  the  delivery  of  the  message, 
a  report  was  transmitted  from  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury, 
containing  a  regular  and  elaborate  argument  in  favor  of  re-char 
tering  the  Bank.  This  circumstance,  taken  in  connexion  with 
some  passages  in  the  message,  of  which  the  meaning  might  be 
considered  doubtful,  were  supposed  by  some  persons  to  indicate 
that  Jackson  had,  under  the  influence  of  better  counsels,  re 
vised  his  opinion  and  was  preparing  to  retrace  his  steps.  For 
ourselves,  we  were  too  well  aware  of  his  violence  and  wrong- 
headedness  to  entertain  any  such  hopes.  At  all  events,  how 
ever,  it  was  clearly  the  policy  of  the  friends  of  the  Bank  that 
the  subject  should  be  brought  up  and  carried  through  Congress 
at  the  last  session;  in  order  that  if  Jackson  should  dare  to  re 
alize  his  threats,  the  people  might  have  an  opportunity  of  re 
versing  his  decision  before  it  could  be  carried  into  effect.  The 
proceedings  of  Congress  are  too  recent  to  require  to  be  here 
recapitulated.  Though  the  report  of  the  examining  committee 
of  the  House  of  Representatives  was  formally  against  the  Bank, 
the  general  result  of  their  labors  was  decidedly  favorable.  The 
majority  were  triumphantly  refuted  by  Mr.  Me  Duffie  in  the 
name  of  the  minority,  and  then  in  a  separate  report  JONA 
THAN  RUSSELLED  by  Mr.  Adams.  Van  Buren's  <  pre 
monitory  symptom'  skulked  off  lame  and  whining  from  the  field. 
Mr.  Clayton  has  not  yet  found  that  '  convenient  opportunity  ' 
for  replying  to  Mr.  Adams,  which  the  opponents  of  the  latter 
gentlemen  are  not  unfrequently  a  long  time  waiting  for.  The 
bill  for  re-chartering  the  Bank  passed  triumphantly  through  both 
houses.  The  President  returned  it  with  the  celebrated  Veto 
Message. 

This  document — when  Jackson  shall  have  been,  as  we  trust 
he  will  be  within  a  very  few  months,  remanded  to  the  Hermi 
tage: — when  the  people  shall  have  long  since  recovered  from 
the  temporary  delusion  that  placed  him  in  office: — when  most 
of  the  messages  and  other  papers  to  which  his  name  has  been 
affixed,  shall  have  been  sunk  by  their  leaden  dullness  in  the 
gulf  of  oblivion: — this  document. — the  Veto  Message — will 
probably  be  kept  in  memory,  and  often  appealed  to  as  a  curious 
example  of  the  extent  to  which,  at  the  commencement  of  the 
8 


58 

nineteenth  century,  the  elected  chief  magistrate  of  a  free, 
civilized  and  enlightened  people  dared  to  insult  the  common 
sense  and  moral  feeling  of  his  constituents.  The  indignant 
outcry  of  the  people  has  already  passed  judgment  upon  this  un 
worthy  paper  and  its  author,  so  that  it  is  nearly  as  superfluous 
as  it  would  be,  within  the  limits  of  the  present  essay,  impossible 
to  examine  its  contents  in  detail.  We  shall  confine  ourselves 
to  a  few  remarks  upon  those  parts  in  which  the  subject  is  treated 
under  an  economical  point  of  view. 

On  this  head,  the  doctrine  of  the  President  has  at  least  the 
merit  of  novelty.  He  gravely  informs  Congress  that  it  is  an 
act  of  intolerable  oppression,  to  furnish  a  man  with  capital  to 
carry  on  his  business,  on  the  ordinary  condition  of  paying  in 
terest  for  the  use  of  it.  lago  counsels  Cassio  in  the  play  to 
put  (  money  in  his  pocket '  as  an  almost  infallible  method  of 
succeeding  in  all  his  enterprises.  Gen.  Jackson  is  evidently 
of  opinion  that  to  put  money  in  a  man's  pocket,  is  to  subject 
him  to  great  and  grievous  embarrassment. — Now  the  Bank  has, 
it  seems,  been  guilty  of  the  high  crime  and  misdemeanor  of 
placing  sundry  millions  of  foreign  capital  in  the  pockets  of  the 
people  of  the  United  States,  and  also  sundry  millions  of  capital 
belonging  to  the  Atlantic  cities,  in  the  pockets  of  the  West. 
This  is  not  all.  Will  posterity  believe  that  in  this  humane  and 
enlightened  age,  the  Bank,  as  the  representative  of  the  owners 
of  this  foreign  and  eastern  capital,  has  the  barbarity  to  demand 
of  the  western  people,  in  whose  pockets  it  is  placed,  the  pay 
ment  of  six  per  cent,  interest  by  the  year  for  the  use  of  it? 
The  fact  would  undoubtedly  be  considered  incredible,  did  it  not 
rest  upon  the  unquestionable  authority  of  the  President  of  the 
United  States.  '  The  debt  due  to  the  bank  by  the  West,'  says 
the  Veto  Message,  i  is  principally  a  debt  to  the  eastern  and 
foreign  stockholders;  the  interest  they  pay  upon  it  (mark  the 
villany!)  is  carried  into  the  eastern  states  and  to  England,  and 
is  a  burden  upon  their  industry  (poor  souls!)  and  a  drain  of 
currency  which  no  country  can  bear  without  inconvenience  and 
occasional  distress.'  It  seems  then,  from  the  President's  show 
ing,  that  these  poor  people  of  the  West  are  not  allowed,  as  honest 
men  should  be,  to  appropriate  the  earnings  of  others  to  their 
own  use,  without  fee  or  reward,  as  the  SPOILS  OF  VICTO 
RY,  but  are  actually  subjected  to  the  enormous  imposition  of 
paying  upon  all  the  money  they  borrow,  the  charge  of  six  per 
cent,  annual  interest.  This,  to  be  sure,  is  i  flat  burglary.' 
The  Bank  permits  itself  to  be  made  the  instrument  of  this  work 
of  iniquity  and  oppression,  and  is  of  course  fairly  obnoxious 
to  the  execration  of  all  the  friends  of  justice  and  humanity. 


59 

But  how  is  the  mischief  to  be  remedied  ? — If  the  President 
is  admirable  in  discovering  the  nature  of  the  disease,  he  is  no 
less  admirable  in  applying  the  cure.  These  Western  states, 
who  are  thus  oppressed  with  a  loan  of  thirty  millions  of  dollars, 
and  who  are  subjected  to  the  intolerable  hardship  and  burden 
of  paying  six  per  cent,  interest  upon  it  are  to  be  relieved — how, 
gentle  reader? — by  being  suddenly  called  upon  to  pay  to  these 
same  eastern  and  foreign  stockholders,  instead  of  the  intolera 
ble  six  per  cent,  interest,  the  whole  hundred  per  cent,  capital 
within  two  or  three  years. 

Is  not  this  excellent  ? — Is  not  this  creditable  to  the  govern 
ment  and  country  ? — Is  not  this  a  fine  piece  of  work  to  go  out 
to  Europe  as  a  specimen  of  the  perfection  to  which  the  science 
of  political  economy  has  been  carried  by  the  '  freest  and  most 
enlightened  nation  on  the  globe  ?' — It  is  an  act  of  oppression  to 
furnish  a  man  with  capital  to  carry  on  his  business:  the  way  to 
relieve  him  is  to  compel  him  to  pay  it  back  again  at  all  sacri 
fices  and  at  a  moment's  notice.  These  are  discoveries  of  which 
Alexander  Hamilton  and  Albert  Gallatin  never  dreamed. 
Smith,  Say  and  Ricardo  might  have  pored  over  their  books  for 
centuries,  without  ever  stumbling  upon  them.  The  document 
which  contains  them,  will  doubtless  be  valued,  when  the  Wealth 
of  Nations  and  the  Report  on  Manufactures  are  forgotten.  Did 
it  never  occur  to  the  worthies  of  the  Kitchen  Cabinet,  in  the 
course  of  their  learned  speculations  on  capital  and  credit,  to 
ask  themselves  the  questions:  Who  compels  the  western  peo 
ple  to  borrow  this  money,  if  they  do  not  want  it? — If  they  wish 
to  relieve  themselves  from  the  burden  of  the  interest  by  paying 
the  principal,  why  cannot  they  do  it  as  well  without  the  destruc 
tion  of  the  Bank  as  with  it? 

Seriously  : — If  this  incredible  nonsense  were  found  in  the 
first  attempt  of  a  college  freshman,  a  reader  of  ordinary  intel 
ligence  would  shrug  his  shoulders,  pronounce  the  writer  an  in 
corrigible  blockhead,  and  pass  the  work  over  in  silence  as  below 
criticism.  When  we  see  it  presented  by  the  Chief  Magistrate 
of  the  country,  in  a  public  message  to  Congress,  as  a  ground 
of  action  on  the  most  important  subjects,  involving  the  interests 
of  the  whole  people,  and  the  private  fortunes  of  thousands  of 
the  citizens,  the  case  becomes  alarming.  What  are  we  to  think 
of  the  capacity  and  information  of  the  President  and  his  ad 
visers? — If  we  suppose  them  sincere,  what  lamentable  igno 
rance,  we  will  not  say  of  political  science,  but  of  the  common 
business  of  practical  life  ! — If ,  on  the  other  hand,  we  suppose 
them  to  possess  but  a  moderate  share  of  the  most  ordinary  in 
formation,  what  barefaced  imposition  !  what  profound  contempt 
for  the  intelligence  of  the  people  ! 


60 

The  objections  of  the  committee  of  the  House  of  Represent 
atives  to  the  administration  of  the  Bank,  are  about  upon  a  level 
in  importance  and  justice,  with  those  of  the  Kitchen  Cabinet  to 
the  renewal  of  the  charter.  One  would  suppose  that  the  com 
mittee  had  been  purposely  laboring  to  make  themselves  ridicu 
lous.  The  Bank  is,  it  seems,  very  strongly  suspected  of  dealing 
in  American  coin.  Really,  and  is  there  not  also  room  to  sus 
pect  that  it  has  made  loans  and  issued  notes?  Here  are  more 
violations  of  the  charter,  which  ought  not  to  have  escaped  the 
vigilance  of  the  committee.  Again  :  the  branches  have  made 
drafts  upon  the  parent  Bank,  and,  fearful  to  relate  !  these  drafts 
have  been  struck  from  a  copperplate  engraving.  Further  still: 
The  Bank  has  made  donations  to  sundry  lamplighters  and  news 
paper  carriers  every  new  year's  day,  and  various  internal  im 
provements  on  its  real  estate,  by  putting  on  new  locks  on  doors 
and  desks  when  the  old  ones  were  worn  out,  and  mending  win 
dows  when  the  glasses  were  broken: — the  whole  to  the  great 
terror  and  dismay  of  the  good  citizens,  and  in  open  violation  of 
the  charter  and  of  the  laws  in  such  cases  made  and  provided! 

Such  in  sober  earnest  and  with  a  very  slight  exaggeration, 
which  does  not  affect  the  merits  of  the  question,  are  the  charges 
gravely  preferred  by  a  committee  of  the  House  of  Representa 
tives  against  the  Bank,  as  motives  for  refusing  the  renewal  of 
the  charter,  and  cautiously  submitted,  without  any  opinion  upon 
their  sufficiency,  to  the  judgment  of  the  House.  It  is  satisfactory 
to  reflect  that  the  representatives  of  the  people,  who  permitted 
themselves  to  take  so  unworthy  a  course,  not  only  failed  in  car 
rying  with  them  the  assent  of  the  house,  but  received  in  public, 
at  the  hands  of  their  chairman,  the  indignant,  bitter  and  effec 
tive  reproof  which  their  conduct  so  justly  merited.  The  com 
mon  sense  of  the  nation  is  now  fully  possessed  of  the  subject, 
and  has  passed  a  sentence  on  the  proceedings  of  Messrs.  Clay 
ton  and  Cambreleng,  which  can  never  be  reversed. 

The  spirit  that  breathes  through  all  these  denunciations  of  the 
Bank  is,  if  possible,  still  worse  than  the  reasoning  contained  in 
them.  For  the  first  time,  perhaps,  in  the  history  of  civilized 
communities,  the  Chief  Magistrate  of  a  great  nation — the  natural 
and  chosen  guardian  of  order  and  the  public  peace — is  found 
appealing  to  the  worst  passions  of  the  uninformed  part  of  the 
people,  and  endeavoring  to  stir  up  the  poor  against  the  rich. 
If  the  Bank  should  be  re-chartered,  "  the  humble  members  of  so 
ciety,  the  farmers,  mechanics  and  laborers,  who  have  neither 
the  time  nor  the  means  of  securing  like  favors  to  themselves, 
have  a  right,"  says  the  veto  message,  "to  complain  of  the  in 
justice  of  the  government."  The  party  journals  are  constantly 


61 

harping  on  the  same  string.  The  Bank  is  denounced  as  a  monied 
aristocracy,  subsisting  in  bloated  arrogance  upon  the  plunder 
of  the  poor.  Are  these  foul-mouthed  calumniators  so  profoundly 
ignorant  of  every  fact  connected  with  the  subjects  which  they 
are  every  day  writing  upon,  as  not  to  know  that  it  is  the  precise 
purpose  of  banks  to  furnish  to  the  persons  of  moderate  fortune 
whom  the  President  is  pleased  to  designate  as  "  the  humble 
members  of  society  "  the  opportunity  of  associating  together, 
and  accommodating  each  other  with  mutual  loans: — that  these 
associations  are,  as  we  have  already  remarked,  the  Providence 
of  the  less  wealthy  portions  of  the  Union  and  of  the  community: 
— that  a  large  proportion  of  the  stock  of  all  the  banks  is  held 
by  the  representatives  of  widows  and  orphans,  who  could  not 
otherwise  readily  find  so  good  an  investment  for  their  property: 
— that  the  rich  can,  without  difficulty,  accommodate  themselves 
in  other  ways,  and  that  it  would  be  to  them  a  matter  of  entire 
indifference  if  every  bank  in  the  country,  national  and  local,  were 
struck  out  of  existence  tomorrow?  Are  they  ignorant,  we  ask. 
of  these  notorious  and  acknowledged  truths? — No,  they  are  not 
— but  they  think,  or  hope,  that  by  boldly  misrepresenting  facts, 
and  perpetually  stimulating  the  vicious  propensities  of  the  mass 
of  the  people,  they  shall  be  able  to  obtain  the  number  of  votes 
necessary  to  continue  them  in  office,  and  secure  for  another 
term  the  possession  of  the  SPOILS  OF  VICTORY.  Such 
is  the  object  ;  and,  in  the  Jackson  code  of  morality,  the  end 
sanctifies  the  means  :  ALL'S  FAIR  IN  POLITICS. 

If  there  could  possibly  be  any  thing  worse  than  the  spirit  and 
temper  of  these  proceedings,  it  would  be  the  detestable  system 
of  PERSONAL  SLANDER  by  which  they  are  supported. 
Because  a  senator  of  the  United  States  stands  up  in  his  place 
to  sustain  one  of  the  most  valuable  and  important  institutions 
of  the  country  against  an  attack  notoriously  carried  on  as  a 
mere  electioneering  manoeuvre,  he  is  charged  at  once  by  a 
hundred  presses  with  BRIBERY.  In  a  late  number  of  the 
Washington  Globe,  we  remarked  an  article  headed  Political 
Morality,  and  introduced  by  the  following  verses,  which  were 
placed  at  the  head  as  an  epigraph  : 

Oh  for  a  whip  in  every  honest  hand, 

To  lash  the  rascals  naked  through  the  land  ! 

On  looking  farther,  we  found  that  these  rascals  who  were  to  be 
lashed  naked  through  the  land  by  the  pure  and  honest  hands  of 
Isaac  Hill  and  Amos  Kendall,  were  no  other  than  Messrs.  Clay, 
Webster,  and  their  principal  associates  in  congress,  and  that 
their  offence  is  to  have  recommended  in  their  places  the  re- 


62 

chartering  of  the  Bank.  The  paper  containing  this  article  is, 
as  our  readers  know,  the  semi-official  organ  of  the  government. 
So  much  for  the  right  guarantied  to  members  of  Congress  of 
not  being  questioned  in  other  places  for  words  spoken  in  debate 
in  either  house.  The  President  himself  does  not  scruple  to 
lend  his  personal  countenance  to  this  system,  and  has  been 
convicted  of  publicly  retailing,  in  his  tavern  conversations, 
during  his  late  journey  to  the  West,  the  revolting  calumnies  of 
the  Globe. 

Will  this  assassination  of  character  be  much  longer  tolerated 
by  the  public  opinion  of  the  people  of  the  United  States  ?  Will 
it  be  much  longer  borne  that  all  distinctions  of  right  and  wrong 
shall  thus  be  habitually  reversed,  and  the  most  abandoned  and 
profligate  members  of  society  permitted  to  fasten  publicly  upon 
the  foreheads  of  the  best  and  purest,  the  brand  of  guilt  ?  Lay 
what  unction  we  will  to  our  souls,  the  people  are  not  innocent 
in  this  matter.  We  consider  it  as  a  proof  of  a  low  state  of 
civilization  in  Spain,  in  Turkey,  and  in  many  other  countries  that 
:he  roads  are  not  safe  : — that  the  stern  decree  of  public  senti 
ment  does  not  lend  force  to  the  law — sweep  the  cowardly  mis 
creants  that  infest  them  from  the  face  of  the  earth,  and  enable 
the  traveller  to  pursue  his  journey  in  security.  The  reproach 
is  just  ;  but  are  not  the  moral  assassins,  that  prowl  through 
every  portion  of  this  vast  Union,  equally  criminal,  and  far  more 
cowardly  than  the  cuthroats  and  cutpurses  of  the  old  world  ?  Is 
it  not  equally  the  duty  of  the  public  to  enforce  the  now  wholly 
ineffectual  laws  against  them,  and  to  declare  with  a  voice  too 
clear  and  loud  to  be  mistaken  or  disregarded,  that  THIS 
THING  SHALL  NOT  BE  ?  Is  it  not  the  bounden  duty  of 
the  people  to  place  this  odious  vice  upon  the  same  footing  with 
other  open  offences  against  morals,  which,  if  they  cannot  be 
wholly  suppressed,  are  at  least  compelled  to  hide  their  heads  ? 
The  toleration  which  public  opinion  now  extends  to  slander  is 
criminal.  We  suffer  for  it  in  the  elevation  of  corrupt  and 
wicked  rulers,  which  is  chiefly  brought  about  by  the  use  of 
this  infamous  engine.  A  reform  like  that  which  we  suggest, 
MUST  TAKE  PLACE.  If  it  do  not— if  the  system  is  per 
mitted  to  go  on  as  it  has  done  for  some  years  past,  from  bad  to 
worse,  the  country  will  become  uninhabitable.  Men  of  honor 
and  probity  will  quit  a  region  where  they  are  not  secured  in  the 
best  and  most  valuable  of  their  possessions,  character,  and  seek 
in  preference — if  they  can  find  no  other  refuge — the  lion-haun 
ted  forests  of  India,  or  the  cannibal  shores  of  New  Zealand. 

In  this  lowest  depth  of  degradation  there  is  yet  a  lower  deep. 
The  proceedings  in  regard  to  the  Bank  indicate  more  distinctly 


63 

than  any  other  single  symptom  the  fearful  and  disgraceful  fact  of  an 
irresponsible  cabal  behind  the  President's  chair,  overruling  the 
opinion  of  his  known  and  responsible  advisers.  Mr.  McLane 
in  his  Treasury  Report,  strongly  recommended,  as  we  have 
remarked,  the  re-chartering  of  the  Bank.  The  Kitchen  Cabinet 
veto  the  bill  :  and  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  retains  his 
commission  !  Can  the  mere  charm  of  holding  an  office  so 
completely  bewilder  the  understandings  even  of  intelligent  and 
upright  men  as  to  blind  them  to  the  plainest  dictates  of  good 
sense  and  honorable  feeling  ?  Look  to  the  mother  country. 
Was  there  ever  a  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  who  would  have 
kept  his  place  under  such  circumstances  ?  Since  the  President 
preferred  the  policy  of  his  secret  cabinet  in  regard  to  the  most 
important  measures,  why  did  not  Mr.  McLane  resign  at  once,  and 
permit  the  real  Secretary  to  make  his  appearance  ?  We  should 
then  have  seen  whether  the  people  would  endure  the  infamy  of 
being  governed  ostensibly,  as  they  are  substantially,  by  Amos 
Kendall  and  Isaac  Hill. 

Such  have  been  the  proceedings  in  regard  to  the  Bank,  and 
such  the  manner  in  which  they  have  been  defended.  What 
would  be  the  effect  of  its  destruction  ?  It  would  unsettle  the  cur 
rency  and  carry  desolation  and  bankruptcy  through  the  whole 
Western  country.  The  debt  of  thirty  millions  due  from  that 
section  to  the  Bank  CANNOT  BE 'PAID.  The  attempt  to 
enforce  it  would  ruin  thousands  of  our  most  industrious  and 
valuable  citizens,  and  arrest  for  years  the  prosperity  of  the  whole 
West.  Will  the  people  consent  to  this  for  the  mere  purpose  of 
securing  to  the  military  chieftain  and  his  partizans  the  SPOILS 
OF  VICTORY  for  another  term  ?  THEY  WILL  NOT. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

EXPLOSION  OF  PARTIES.— KITCHEN  CABINET. 

In  the  preceding  chapters,  we  have,  agreeably  to  the  plan 
proposed  at  the  commencement  of  the  work,  rapidly  review 
ed  the  character  and  qualifications  of  Gen.  Jackson  and  of 
the  leading  members  of  his  first  Administration: — the  means 
by  which  they  got  possession  of  the  government,  and  the  man 
ner  in  which  they  have  administered  it.  We  have  seen  that 
Jackson  is  himself  entirely  deficient  in  all  the  talents  and  ac 
complishments,  required  in  the  office  of  President  of  the  Uni- 


64 

ted  States  : — that  his  personal  habits  and  the  events  of  his  pre 
ceding  career,  rendered  him  perhaps  the  only  prominent  man 
in  the  country,  whom  it  was  decidedly  dangerous  to  entrust 
with  that  office: — that  he  was  elevated  to  it  by  a  combination 
of  political  leaders,  who  used  his  name  and  popularity  as  ma 
chinery  to  advance  their  own  selfish  projects,  and  finally,  that 
he  has  employed  the  influence  it  has  given  him  to  deprive  the 
people  of  their  most  faithful  and  valuable  servants; — to  corrupt 
the  sources  of  the  national  prosperity,  and  to  undermine  the 
most  important  institutions  of  government. 

It  only  remains  to  comment  briefly,  in  conclusion,  upon  the 
explosion  of  parties  which  took  place  about  a  year  ago  in  the 
cabinet,  on  the  spirit  of  the  Administration  as  now  constituted, 
and  on  the  means  that  are  in  use  to  sustain  the  party  in  power. 
We  remarked  in  one  of  our  first  chapters  that  the  original 
Jackson  party  consisted  of  three  principal  divisions,  viz.  the 
personal  adherents  of  the  General,  and  the  political  friends  of 
Messrs.  Calhoun  and  Van  Buren.  The  General's  own  strength, 
as  far  as  he  had  any,  lay  in  his  supposed  popularity  with  the 
great  body  of  voters,  and  this  was  the  circumstance  that  in 
duced  the  political  leaders  to  attach  themselves  to  his  cause. 
The  political  influence  of  the  party  was  almost  wholly  in  the 
hands  of  the  friends  of  Messrs.  Calhoun  and  Van  Buren.  But 
these,  although  they  had  acted  together  for  the  immediate  pur 
pose  of  ejecting  Mr.  Adams  and  bringing  in  Jackson,  not  only 
had  no  community  of  opinion,  feeling  or  interest,  but  were  on 
all  essential  points  at  open  war  with  each  other.  Their  views 
on  the  great  questions  of  internal  policy  which  have  almost  ex 
clusively  occupied  the  public  attention  for  three  years  past, 
were  diametrically  opposite,  and  the  political  pretensions  of 
their  leaders  came  directly  into  collision.  Both  aspired  to  suc 
ceed  Gen.  Jackson  in  the  Presidency,  and  neither  would  ad 
journ  his  claims  for  a  single  day.  It  was  obvious  enough  that 
these  contradictory  elements  could  not  very  long  co-operate 
harmoniously  in  the  same  political  party  : — that  an  explosion 
must  sooner  or  later  take  place,  and  that  this  could  not  be  de 
ferred  beyond  the  time  when  the  question  of  the  succession 
should  come  before  the  people.  It  was  presumed  that  great 
efforts  would  be  made  to  preserve  unity,  until  the  re-election 
of  Jackson  should  be  secured  ;  and  it  was  thought  not  improb 
able,  that  under  a  strong  sense  of  common  interest  and  com 
mon  danger,  this  might  be  effected. 

Passion,  however,  proved  too  strong  for  policy.  In  a  little 
more  than  two  years  the  explosion  broke  out  with  circum 
stances  of  so  much  violence  and  scandal,  as  not  only  to 


63 

destroy  entirely  the  chance  of  General  Jackson's  re-elec 
tion,  and  of  the  success  of  either  of  the  rivals  to  the  suc 
cession,  but  as  to  endanger  very  seriously  the  tranquillity 
and  permanence  of  the  Union.  The  constantly  increasing 
zeal  with  which  Mr.  Calhoun  has  continued,  from  year  to 
year,  to  urge  the  doctrine  of  nullification,  must  be  attribu 
ted,  in  part  at  least,  to  his  disappointment  and  disgust  at  find 
ing  himself  turned  aside  by  the  arts  of  an  every  way  inferi 
or  competitor,  from  the  high  career  which  he  was  once  pur 
suing  with  so  fair  a  prospect  of  success. — There  are  few  strong 
er  examples  in  history  than  this,  of  the  irresistible  force  with 
which  the  spontaneous  and  original  impulses  of  our  nature 
overmaster  all  the  combinations  of  art,  and  sweep  down  the 
slender  barriers  by  which  calculation  endeavors  to  dam  them 
up. 

The  breach  among  the  SPOILERS  had  in  fact  become  ir 
reparable  even  before  they  had  entered  into  possession  of  the 
PLUNDER.  The  Calhoun  leaders— as  we  have  already 
had  occasion  to  remark — were  not  consulted  about  the  arrange 
ment  of  the  Administration.  Van  Buren  assigned  to  himself 
the  lion's  share  of  the  spoils,  and  gave  to  the  other  divisions  of 
the  party  such  representatives  in  the  cabinet  as  he  thought 
best  fitted  to  promote  his  own  objects.  We  may  well  suppose  that 
the  fiery  spirit  of  the  Southern  champion  did  not  very  patiently 
brook  this  indignity,  but  it  was  deemed  expedient  to  suspend 
an  open  rupture  as  long  as  possible.  In  his  position  as  Presi 
dent  of  the  Senate,  and  in  the  great  superiority  of  the  talents 
of  his  partisans  in  Congress,  Mr.  Calhoun  had  some  advantages 
over  his  rival,  who  on  the  other  hand  controlled  the  cabinet  and 
the  back  stairs.  It  remained  to  be  seen,  which  of  these  two 
sorts  of  influence  would  preponderate.  The  two  first  years  of 
the  Administration  were  chiefly  occupied  with  the  struggle  of 
the  two  parties  for  the  (  esteem  and  confidence  of  Gen.  Jack 
son,'  the  possession  of  which  the  leaders  of  one  of  them  has 
since  publicly  declared  to  be  a  title  of  honor  sufficient  to  satisfy* 
the  most  extravagant  ambition. 

The  history  of  these  two  years,  carried  out  fully  into  all  its 
details,  as  it  one  day  probably  will  be,  would  resemble  a  chap 
ter  in  the  Scandalous  Chronicle  of  the  Greek  Empire,  or  the 
Memoirs  of  the  French  Court  of  the  time  of  Louis  XV.,-  and 
treated  by  a  powerful  hand  with  perfect  freedom,  would  be  full 
of  entertainment  and  instruction.  Nemesis,  it  is  said,  is  always 
on  the  watch.  It  was  a  singular  and  even  laughable  circum 
stance,  that  a  party  which  had  affected  to  charge  Mr.  Adams 
— a  man  remarkable  for  a  more  than  republican  simplicity  of 
9 


66 

manner — with  a  fondness  for  etiquette,  should  have  been  princi 
pally  occupied  for  about  two  years  in  settling  the  question,  wheth 
er  a  particular  lady  should  or  should  not  be  received  in  the  fash 
ionable  circles  of  Washington.  To  effect  her  introduction 
seems  to  have  been,  as  we  remarked  before,  during  this  period, 
the  leading  object  of  the  policy  of  Jackson  and  Van  Buren; 
to  prevent  it  was,  on  the  other  hand,  the  not  less  constant  ef 
fort  of  the  adherents  of  Mr.  Calhoun.  This  controversy  was 
for  the  time  being  the  point  upon  which  all  the  great  political 
affairs  of  the  country  were  made  to  turn: — Negotiations  with 
foreign  ministers— correspondence  and  conversations  among 
the  members  of  the  cabinet — discussions  at  the  President's 
house — on  all  occasions,  this  was  the  universal  topic.  If  we 
are  rightly  informed,  the  only  cabinet  meeting  which  was  held 
while  Van  Buren  was  Secretary  of  State  was  occupied  with 
the  discussion  of  this  great  question.  It  is  foreign  to  our  pur 
pose  to  enter  into  the  arguments  that  were  urged  on  both  sides  in 
the  course  of  these  debates.  The  sanctuary  of  private  life  is  not 
to  be  invaded  even  for  the  purpose  of  supporting  a  good  cause. 
We  may  remark  in  general  that  whatever  outward  form  and 
coloring  the  controversy  may  have  assumed,  it  was  after  all 
substantially  political.  The  object  of  Mr.  Van  Buren  was  to 
sustain  the  reputation  and  influence  of  Major  Eaton,  whom  ho 
had  placed  in  the  cabinet  as  the  representative  of  the  personal 
friends  of  Jackson,  and  through  whom  he  expected  to  exercise 
an  indirect  influence  over  the  General  himself.  The  object  of 
Mr.  Calhoun,  was  of  course  to  counteract  this  influence,  and  if 
possible  to  remove  Eaton  from  Washington. 

In  this  controvery,  Van  Buren  came  off  with  flying  colors. 
Although  the  fair  exclusives  of  Washington  obstinately  refused 
to  unfold  their  drawing-room  doors  at  the  utterance  of  the 
executive  Open  sesame  !  the  President,  with  equal  firmness,  re 
fused  to  close  his  in  compliment  to  their  scruples,  and  after  a 
hard  struggle,  continued  with  unremitted  vigor  on  both  sides 
through  the  long  session  of  '29—30,  the  MALIGN  INFLU 
ENCE,  that  is  in  substance,  the  influence  of  Van  Buren,  was 
found  to  retain  undiminished  its  original  ascendency.  It  is 
evident,  in  fact,  that  while  the  warfare  between  the  rivals  was 
waged  upon  this  ground,  the  advantage  was  wholly  in  favor  of 
the  Secretary  of  State.  He  was  in  possession  of  the  field. 
He  commanded  the  cabinet,  the  back-stairs,  and  the  bed-cham 
ber.  His  talents,  as  far  as  he  possesses  any,  fit  him  to  act  upon 
this  theatre.  His  little,  narrow,  sordid  soul  is  at  home  in  the 
little  arts,  the  little  intrigues,  the  little  miserable,  mischievous 
monkey  tricks,  that  may  be  supposed  to  decide  questions  in  a 


67 

council  of  chambermaids.  The  Vice  President,  on  the  other 
hand,  moved  in  a  sphere  entirely  aloof  from  this  paltry  ma- 
noeuvering.  His  advantages  lay  in  the  superiority  of  his 
friends  in  the  two  Houses  of  Congress.  His  and  their  great 
talents,  commanding  eloquence,  manly  firmness  and  decision 
of  character,  were  all  lost  in  this  obscure  contest,  where  the 
only  real  disgrace  was  not  to  be  defeated. 

Finding,  after  a  sufficiently  long  experiment,  that  there  was 
no  possibility  of  dislodging  the  MALIGN  INFLUENCE  in  a 
quiet  way  from  the  councils  of  the  palace,  the  Vice  President, 
with  the  vigor  and  boldness  that  belong  to  his  character,  de 
termined  at  once  upon  an  open  breach.  Van  Buren  had 
secured  to  himself  the  entire  SPOILS  of  the  VICTORY 
which  placed  the  combined  party  in  power:  he  was  pushing 
for  the  succession  with  the  full  approbation  and  favor  of  Jack 
son.  If  Mr.  Calhoun,  for  the  sake  of  preserving  the  unity  of  the 
party,  were  to  acquiesce  in  this  state  of  things  until  after  Jack 
son  should  be  re-elected  for  another  term,  the  course  of  public 
opinion  would  be  settled,  and  his  own  chance  for  the  succes 
sion  lost  forever.  There  was  therefore  no  other  resource  left 
to  him  but  to  take  a  stand  at  once,  as  he  did.  Thus  Van 
Buren,  by  an  excess  of  selfish  and  treacherous  cunning — as 
often  happens  in  this  kind  of  management — overreached  him 
self.  Had  he  dealt  more  openly  and  fairly  with  Mr.  Calhoun, 
allowed  him  his  full  share  of  influence  in  the  administration, 
waived  for  the  time  his  personal  views,  and  confined  himself  to 
an  active  discharge  of  the  duties  of  his  department  (for  which, 
however,  he  was  in  all  respects  totally  unqualified,)  he  would 
probably  at  this  moment  have  been  Secretary  of  State,  with  a 
fair  prospect  of  the  succession  to  the  Presidency. 

But  on  what  ground  was  Mr.  Calhoun  to  take  his  stand  for 
the  purpose  of  making  a  public  attack  on  his  rival?  Here  lay 
the  weakness  of  his  case,  and  the  reason  why — although  he 
succeeded  at  once  in  demolishing  his  puny  antagonist — he 
made  no  impression  upon  the  people  in  his  own  favor.  The 
controversy  between  him  and  Van  Buren  was,  in  substance,  a 
quarrel  between  two  political  leaders,  who  considered  the  of 
fices  of  government  as  the  SPOILS  OF  VICTORY,  about 
the  division  of  them.  This  was  obviously  a  case  where  the 
people  of  the  United  States  could  not  reasonably  be  expected 
to  take  much  interest  in  favor  of  either  of  the  combatants. 
Whether  the  compact  between  the  two  leaders  had  been  fairly 
observed  on  both  sides; — whether  the  automaton  whom  they 
employed  as  the  nominal  distributer  of  spoils  had  done  his 
work  impartially  between  them,  and  if  not,  why? — were  ques- 


68 

tions  which  the  people  hardly  thought  it  worth  their  while  to 
discuss.  When  they  saw  Mr.  Calhoun  publicly  take  a  stand 
against  his  rival,  the  real  ground  for  satisfaction  was  that  this 
open  breach  must  necessarily  break  up  the  whole  machinery 
of  the  combined  party,  destroy  all  chance  of  the  re-election  of 
Jackson,  as  well  as  of  the  success  of  either  of  the  pretenders, 
and  afford  the  people  an  opportunity  of  placing  in  the  princi 
pal  offices  of  government  men  who  do  not  consider  them  as 
prizes  for  which  the  reckless  and  profligate  are  to  gamble, 
fight  and  bully,  but  as  sacred  trusts  instituted  for  the  public 
good,  and  which  no  individual  can  accept  or  hold  from  any 
other  motive  than  regard  for  the  public  good,  without  assum 
ing  a  responsibility  sufficiently  serious  to  alarm  the  conscience 
of  all  but  the  most  hardened  and  abandoned  reprobates. 

The  question,  however,  such  as  it  was  between  the  two 
rivals,  was  publicly  discussed.  Why  did  Gen.  Jackson  bestow 
his  "  esteem  aud  confidence"  upon  Mr.  Van  Buren,  rather  than 
Mr.  Calhoun?  This  interesting  inquiry  was  made  the  subject 
of  various  pamphlets,  of  much  correspondence,  and  of  many  in 
terminable  newspaper  articles.  Mr.  Calhoun  ascertained,  as 
he  thought,  that  Van  Buren  had  poisoned  the  mind  of  the  Gen 
eral  by  artful  misrepresentations  of  the  part  which  he  had  taken, 
as  Secretary  of  War,  in  the  Cabinet  discussions  upon  Jackson's 
conduct  towards  the  Spaniards  and  the  Seminoles.  He  pub 
lished  a  pamphlet,  containing  what  he  considered  the  evidence 
of  such  misrepresentation.  The  fact  was  denied  by  Van  Bu 
ren,  who  summoned  to  his  aid  as  witnesses  Messrs.  Crawford, 
Forsyth,  Hamilton  and  others.  Mr.  Calhoun,  on  the  other 
hand,  invoked  the  testimony  of  his  immediate  friends.  The 
newspapers  were  occupied  for  months  with  long  statements  and 
counter-statements,  and  the  battles  of  the  Seminole  war  were 
again  fought  and  refought  a  hundred  times  over.  The  most 
edifying  part  of  the  affair  was  to  see  these  persons,  who  had 
all  for  six  years  preceding  been  crying  themselves  hoarse  in 
charging  Mr.  Adams  with  a  corrupt  bargain,  now  with  one  ac 
cord  appealing  to  him  as  a  man  in  whose  integrity  and  up 
rightness  they  could  place  implicit  confidence  for  testimony  in 
support  of  their  respective  statements.  Mr.  Adams,  with  the 
calm  and  modest  dignity  that  belongs  to  his  character,  supplied, 
without  reflection  or  commentary,  the  facts  that  were  wanted. 
But  the  people,  as  we  have  said,  took  little  or  no  interest  in  the 
discussion,  although  it  was  abundantly  seasoned  throughout 
with  the  hot  spice  of  scandal.  They  only  saw  that  their  ene 
mies  had  come  to  daggers-drawing  among  themselves,  and, 
without  taking  much  trouble  to  ascertain  what  it  was  all  about, 


69 

or  which  side  was  most  in  the  wrong,  began  immediately  to 
make  preparations  for  obtaining  their  own  rights,  which  honest 
men,  who  have  been  dispossessed  of  them,  commonly  avail 
themselves  of  such  occasions  to  recover. 

Van  Buren,  on  his  side,  with  the  magnanimity  and  patriotism 
which  distinguish  all  his  proceedings,  began  to  look  after  his  own 
interest.  Aware  of  his  utter  inability  to  face  the  Vice  Presi 
dent  in  an  open  discussion  of  any  question  before  the  people, 
and  also  knowing  that  an  open  struggle  between  them  would 
be  fatal*  to  the  unity  of  the  party,  he  endeavored  to  prevent  it 
by  a  timely  retreat  from  the  field.  He  accordingly  resigned 
his  place  as  Secretary  of  State,  and  Mr.  McLane  havinf 
been  recalled,  accepted  the  post  of  Minister  to  England, 
which,  as  he  has  since  told  us,  (we  have  no  doubt  truly,) 
he  intended  to  occupy  for  the  '  usual  period'  of  four  years. 
His  calculation  seems  to  have  been  to  remain  abroad  over  the 
now  pending  election.  If  in  consequence  of  his  retreat  the  unity 
of  the  party  should  be  preserved,  and  Jackson  re-elected,  he  would 
assume  the  credit  of  a  magnanimous  sacrifice  of  his  own  inter 
est  to  the  good  of  the  party,  and  use  it  as  an  argument  in  sup 
port  of  his  pretensions  to  the  succession.  If,  on  the  other  hand 
— as  was  more  probable — the  party  should  break  up  completely, 
and  Jackson's  re-election  be  defeated,  he  would  still  find  him 
self  in  one  of  the  most  conspicuous  places  in  the  executive  de 
partment  of  the  government,  from  which  he  could  watch  the 
movement  of  parties  at  home,  and  at  a  proper  season  make  up 
his  mind  which  was  likely  to  prove  '  the  Republican  party,'  or 
in  other  words,  the  strongest  side.  In  retiring  himself  from 
the  field,  it  was  important,  however,  that  he  should  not  leave  it 
in  possession  of  the  enemy ;  and,  as  two  at  least  of  his  colleagues 
in  the  Cabinet  were  devoted  to  Mr.  Calhoun,  it  was  necessary 
to  get  rid  of  them,  and  fill  their  places  with  persons  on  whom 
he  could  depend. 

Some  men  would  probably  have  found  the  operation  rather 
embarrassing;  but  this  modest  little  gentleman  possesses,  as  we 
have  already  remarked,  a  patent  right  to  outrage  the  most  emi 
nent  men  in  the  country  with  impunity:  and  the  privilege  ex 
tends  not  only  to  political  opponents,  but  to  men  of  all  parties, 
including  his  own,  whenever  they  are  supposed  to  stand  in  the 
way  of  his  immediate  selfish  interest.  With  the  same  delicate 
sense  of  justice  and  decorum  which  had  marked  his  deportment 
towards  the  public  functionaries  belonging  to  the  preceding  Ad 
ministration,  he  now  turned  upon  his  political  friends,  and, 
without  the  slightest  pretext  or  apology,  rudely  thrust  out  of  the 
highest  and  most  responsible  posts  of  the  government  the  very 


70 

men  whom,  two  years  before,  he  had  selected  from  the  whole 
people  as  the  persons  most  competent  to  fill  them,  with  about 
the  same  ceremony  as  a  common  citizen  would  practise  in 
changing  his  shoe-black.  The  form  given  to  this  proceeding 
was  that  of  an  entire  change  of  the  heads  of  departments.  A 
correspondence  took  place  between  the  retiring  or  ejected  func 
tionaries  and  their  chief,  including  several  letters  of  mutual 
explanation  among  themselves.  The  reason  assigned  by  Van 
Buren  for  tendering  his  resignation  was  that  he  must  either  re 
tire  or  disfranchise  himself, — that  is,  surrender  his  claims  to  the 
Presidency  of  the  United  States.  In  choosing  the  former  part 
of  the  alternative,  he  virtually  proposes  himself  to  the  people  as 
a  candidate  for  the  succession.  The  people  will  of  course  take 
him  at  his  word.  It  would  be  unpardonable  to  lose  the  oppor 
tunity  of  having  c  the  sweetest  little  fellow  in  the  world,'  and 
who  is  evidently  as  modest  and  c  innocent  as  sweet,'  at  the  head 
of  the  government. 

But  why  did  the  other  heads  of  departments  quit  their  places  ? 
Messrs.  Ingham,  Eaton,  Branch  and  Berrien  were  not  candi 
dates  for  the  Presidency.  They  might  have  continued  without 
disfranchising  themselves  to  hold  the  offices  which  they  filled,  in 
the  diplomatic  phrase,  '  with  so  much  credit  to  themselves  and 
advantage  to  the  country.'  Why  were  they  compelled  to  re 
tire?  The  President  supplies  the  reason  in  one  of  his  letters. 
His  '  Cabinet  proper  '  had  been  and  must  continue  to  be  a  unit 
— which,  done  into  English,  seems  to  mean  that,  as  the  heads 
of  departments  came  into  office  together,  they  must  all  go  out 
at  the  same  time.  To  this  there  could,  of  course,  be  no  reply. 
The  consequence,  to  be  sure,  is  not  clear,  but  MUST  is  a  bold 
word,  which  carries  every  thing  before  it,  and  no  doubt  suited 
admirably  well  the  southern  stomachs  of  the  gentlemen  to  whom 
it  was  addressed.  Eaton,  who  was  in  the  secret,  came  very 
readily  into  the  arrangement — Berrien,  Branch  and  Ingham 
fought  hard.  The  whole  scene  was  at  once  disgusting,  pain 
ful,  and,  under  certain  aspects,  irresistibly  ludicrous.  The 
coarse  and  blundering  style  of  the  correspondence  on  the  part 
of  Jackson  and  Eaton — the  mutual  defiance  and  recrimination 
— the  challenging — the  lying  in  wait  with  pistols — in  short,  all 
the  circumstances  of  this  strange  transaction,  taken  together, 
resembled  the  quarrel  among  the  robbers  in  Gil  Bias  about  the 
distribution  of  the  SPOILS,  much  more  than  a  change  in  the  ad 
ministration  of  the  government  of  the  "  freest  and  most  en 
lightened  nation  of  the  globe."  Mr.  Senator  Marcy  has  since 
kindly  informed  us,  in  the  name  of  the  principal  actor,  that  such 
in  fact  is,  and  ought  to  be,  the  character  of  all  important  politi- 


71 

cal  movements.  How  lofty  the  standard  of  civilization  which 
admits  and  even  publicly  justifies  such  proceedings!  We  can 
not  but  think  that  if  Chancellor  Oxenstiern  were  now  alive,  he 
would  change  the  turn  of  his  celebrated  instruction  to  his  son, 
and  would  send  him  to  Washington  to  see  how  much  wisdom 
and  virtue  are  employed  in  governing  the  world. 

Having  thus  cleared  the  stage  of  one  set  of  actors,  and  filled 
it  with  another,  who  enjoyed  more  of  his  u  esteem  and  confi 
dence,"  Van   Buren  accepted  the  appointment  of  minister  to 
London,  and  sailed  for  Europe,  apparently  in  the  full  persuasion 
that  the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  containing  a  majority  of 
members  from  two  parties,  not  only  politically  opposed  to  him, 
but  of  both  which  he  had  treated  the  most  prominent  men  with 
wanton  and  contemptuous  indignity,  would,  from  mere  courtesy 
to  him,  confirm  the  nomination.     It  would  be  difficult  to  find  a 
stronger  example  of  the  extent  to  which  a  complete  absorption 
of  every  other  feeling  and  faculty,  in  blind  devotion  to  self,  can 
obscure  the  perceptions  of  a  naturally  acute   mind.     We  need 
not   say  how  early  and  how  entirely  this  wise   expectation   was 
disappointed.     The  worm  that  is  trodden  on,  knows  how  to  turn 
— and  it  was  hardly  to  be  supposed  that  the   towering  spirits 
from  the  east  and  west  and  south,  who  are  now  congregated  in 
the  Senate,  having  the  power  in  their   hands,  would  be  wholly 
passive  under  the  gratuitous  insults  which  Mr.  Van  Buren  had 
thought  proper  to  bestow  upon  them  and  their  friends.     Inde 
pendently  of  his  disgraceful  instructions  to  Mr.  McLane,  which 
rendered  it  an   imperious  duty  to  withdraw  him  immediately 
from  London,  his  treatment  of  the  public  functionaries  both  of 
the  past  and  present  Administration  had  excluded  him  entirely 
from  the  pale  of  political  courtesy.     He  was  accordingly  nega 
tived  without   ceremony.     In  his  answer  to  the   letter  of  con 
dolence  addressed  to  him  by  some  of  his  New  York  associates, 
he   very  gravely  represents   his  case  as  an  uncommonly  hard 
one.     That  the  Representatives  of  twenty-four  sovereign  States 
should  venture  for  the  weightiest  reasons  to  recal  Martin  Van 
Buren  from  a  foreign  mission  is  a  hard  case  ;  but  that  Martin 
Van  Buren,  a  little   New  York  lawyer,   should,  without  the 
shadow  of  any  motive  but  his  own  personal  convenience,  recal 
the  whole  corps  of  foreign  ministers — remove  the  most  valuable 
public   servants  by  hundreds,  and  finally  elbow  his   own   col 
leagues  out  of  the  cabinet,  is  quite  in   the  ordinary  course  of 
things.     This  is  really  the  sublime  of  self-conceit,  and  as  Na 
poleon  said  of  the  sublime  in  other  cases — comes  within  a  step 
of  the  ridiculous.     Mr.  Van  Buren's  reception  on  his  arrival, 
and  the  reception  of  his  nomination  as  Vice  President,  will 


72 

have  partly  satisfied  him  that  the  People  are  not  much  greater 
admirers  of  Regency  politics  than  the  Senate.  It  does  not  ap 
pear  however  that  he  is  yet  entirely  roused  from  his  dream  of 
delusion.  His  recent  nomination  of  Mr.  SPOILER  Marcy 
as  the  candidate  for  Governor  in  New  York,  if  it  be  not  a  mere 
bravado,  shows  that  he  is  quite  insensible  to  the  real  state  of 
public  opinion. — The  sentence  which  the  people  will  pass  at 
the  close  of  this  month  upon  that  nomination,  and  at  the  same 
time  upon  his  own  pretensions  to  the  Vice  Presidency,  will 
probably  open  his  eyes,  or  at  all  events  will  place  him  where 
he  will  be  for  the  rest  of  his  life  as  harmless,  and  about  as  re 
spectable  as  his  neighbor  Aaron  Burr  has  been  for  the  last 
thirty  years. 

The  course  pursued  by  the  Vice  President  after  the  breaking 
up  of  the  party  was  entirely  different  from  that  of  Van  Buren, 
and  though  sufficiently  objectionable  on  other  grounds,  has  at 
least  something  manly  and  generous  about  it.  Instead  of  act 
ing  on  the  sauce  qui  pent  principle,  and  endeavoring  to  secure 
a  provision  for  himself  out  of  the  wreck  of  the  hopes  and  pros 
pects  of  the  concern,  he  has  withdrawn  himself  entirely  from 
the  struggle  for  the  succession,  and  after  the  close  of  his  pre 
sent  official  term,  will  retire  to  private  life.  We  trust,  how 
ever,  that  he  will  appear  again  in  Congress,  where  the  eminent 
and  powerful  men  of  all  parties  naturally  find  their  place,  and 
where  by  meeting  each  other  on  the  open  field  of  free  discus 
sion,  they  correct  errors,  forget  local  prejudices,  and  learn  to 
act  with  a  broad  and  general  view  to  the  welfare  of  the  whole 
country.  Mr.  Calhoun  and  his  immediate  friends  now  profess 
v/hat  we  deem  very  erroneous  notions  on  the  economical  policy 
of  the  country,  and  are  apparently  disposed  to  give  them  effect 
by  a  course  of  measures  repugnant  to  the  constitution,  and  sub 
versive  of  the  Union  of  the  States.  But  in  all  these  cases  of 
supposed  grievances  suffered  by  particular  states  or  sections, 
the  alarm  of  threatened  resistance  has  always  very  greatly  ex 
ceeded  the  real  danger.  However  imprudent  may  have  been 
the  language,  and  to  a  certain  extent  the  proceedings  of  the 
Nullifiers,  we  can  never  believe  that  men  of  so  much  talent  and 
patriotism  will  ultimately  insist  that  the  minority  are  to  rule  the 
majority,  or  will  for  the  promotion  of  any  sectional  or  personal 
purpose,  lay  violent  hands  on  the  sacred  ark  of  the  Union. 
We  can  easily  excuse  a  little  intemperate  language  where  it 
evidently  proceeds  from  the  overflowing  of  an  ardent  and  gen 
erous  temper.  We  must  recollect  that  the  time  has  been  when 
we  too  were  laboring  under  real  or  imaginary  wrongs,  and  were 
meditating  projects  little  less  violent  than  those  which  are  now 


73 

agitated  in  South  Carolina.  In  the  generous  phrase  of  Burke  : 
We  must  pardon  something  to  the  Spirit  of  Liberty,  and  we  do  it 
with  cheerfulness.  We  must  and  can  cheerfully  pardon  any 
thing  but  undisguised  and  avowed  corruption.  We  deem  it  a 
fortunate  circumstance  that  the  chief  direction  of  the  nullifying 
party  should  be  in  the  hands  of  Mr.  Calhoun.  His  undoubted 
patriotism  will  induce  him  at  all  hazards  to  avoid  any  desperate 
extremity,  and  his  commanding  character  will  give  him  the  in 
fluence  over  his  friends  which  may  be  wanted  for  the  purpose 
of  keeping  them  within  bounds.  We  have  said  that  his  political 
career  was  at  an  end  ;  but  we  are  not  sure  after  all  that  he  may 
not  be  reserved  to  render  very  important  services  to  the  Union. 
The  South  has  no  more  prominent  citizen  to  present  to  the  peo 
ple  hereafter  as  a  candidate  for  the  highest  marks  of  confidence 
which  they  have  to  bestow  ;  and  if  Mr.  Calhoun  should  return 
to  Congress,  and,  imitating  the  example  of  Mr.  Clay  in  regard 
to  the  Missouri  question,  should  act  the  part  of  a  mediator,  and 
employ  his  authority  and  talents  in  settling  the  questions  that 
now  disturb  the  public  tranquillity,  on  any  ground  of  fair  and 
honorable  compromise,  he  will  find  the  friends  of  the  country 
in  all  quarters  entirely  disposed  to  acknowledge  the  service, 
and  to  join  with  his  immediate  partisans  in  doing  him  honor  as 
a  public  benefactor. 

Such  however  were  the  principal  circumstances  and  imme 
diate  results  of  the  explosion  in  the  Cabinet,  which  destroyed 
the  unity  of  the  Jackson  party,  and  with  it  all  chance  of  the 
General's  re-election,  or  of  the  success  of  either  of  the  pre 
tenders  to  the  succession.  The  new  cabinet  was  on  the  whole 
an  improvement  on  the  former  one,  although  each  of  the  mem 
bers  was  on  different  accounts  obnoxious  to  weighty  objections. 
Mr.  Livingston  is  too  old  to  sustain  the  burden  of  the  depart 
ment  of  State.  Gov.  Cass  is  pledged  to  the  worst  doctrines  on 
the  Indian  question.  Mr.  McLane  had  allowed  himself  to  be 
made  the  instrument  of  the  national  dishonor  at  London  ;  and 
Woodbury  had  but  recently  truckled  in  the  basest  manner  to 
Isaac  Hill — a  depth  of  degradation  below  which  no  man  could 
well  wish  his  worst  enemy  to  descend.  Objectionable  however 
as  they  on  some  accounts  were,  the  people  would  probably 
have  considered  the  change  as  a  favorable  one,  had  it  turned 
out  that  these  men  were  to  be  in  fact  the  President's  advisers. 
But  the  course  of  events  soon  disclosed  the  alarming  and  dis 
graceful  fact  that  the  heads  of  departments  constitute  merely 
the  formal  Government,  and  that  the  power  is  really  lodged  in 
a  secret  irresponsible  cabal  which  has  since  received  the  ap 
propriate  and  characteristic  denomination  of  the  KITCHEN 
10 


74 

CABINET.  The  existence  and  power  of  this  cabal  have  been 
apparent  ever  since  the  explosion,  and  have  lately  been  proved 
beyond  the  possibility  of  question  by  the  proceedings  in  regard 
to  the  Bank. 

The  report  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  on  this  subject 
contained  the  opinion  of  the  responsible  head  of  the  financial 
department  ;  the  Veto  Message  registers  the  decree  of  the  se 
cret  council,  by  which  that  opinion  was  reversed. — Hitherto  it 
has  been  deemed  the  principle  of  our  Government  and  the  se 
curity  of  our  liberty  that  wherever  there  was  power  there  was 
also  responsibility.  Now  the  responsible  agents  of  the  people 
are  paralyzed,  and  the  real  power  is  lodged  in  hands  which  the 
people  cannot  reach.  It  has  deserted  the  places  of  business 
of  the  President's  constitutional  advisers,  arid  taken  up  its  abode 
in  obscure  recesses,  which  the  public  eye  cannot  penetrate — 
the  bureaux  of  subaltern  clerks  or  the  closets  and  bed-chambers 
of  domestic  dependents.  In  this  respect  our  young  Govern 
ment  exhibits  at  the  present  moment  the  worst  features  of  the 
worst  and  most  corrupt  governments  of  the  old  world.  This 
state  of  things  is  new  and  ominous.  It  deserves  the  serious 
reflection  of  every  patriotic  and  well-meaning  citizen. 


CHAPTER  X. 

SPIRIT  OF  JACKSON1SM.— CONCLUSION. 

IN  the  preceding  chapters,  we  have  rapidly  reviewed  the 
measures  by  which  the  present  Administration  rose  to  power, 
and  have  exposed  in  detail  the  unconstitutional  character  and 
ruinous  tendency  of  their  principal  measures.  At  the  close  of 
our  last  essay,  we  stated  that  since  the  dissolution  of  the  Van 
Buren  cabinet,  the  effective  power  of  the  government  had  been 
lodged  in  the  hands  of  a  secret  and  irresponsible  cabal,  some 
times  denominated  the  Kitchen  Cabinet,  and  the  "  Cabinet  im 
proper."  We  propose  to  notice,  in  conclusion,  the  general  spirit 
of  the  Administration  as  now  constituted,  and  of  the  party  which 
it  represents,  with  the  means  which  they  employ  to  perpetuate 
their  influence. 

The  spirit  of  Jacksonism,  the  most  remarkable  exhibitions  of 
which  we  have  separately  examined  and  characterised,  which 
has  been  distinctly  perceptible  ever  since  the  formation  of  the 
Jackson  party,  and  has  become,  from  day  to  day,  more  and 


75 

more  apparent,  especially  since  the  organization  of  the  "  im 
proper  Cabinet,"  is  the  same  that  prevailed  in  France  at  the 
vvoist  period  of  the  Revolution,  and  was  then  known  by  the 
name  of  JACOBINISM.  As  it  then  existed  in  France, 
and  as  it  now  exists  in  this  country,  it  may  be  described  as  a 
spirit  which  aims  at  the  subversion  of  social  order  and  the  regu 
lar  and  wholesome  authority  of  law,  for  the  purpose  of  concen 
trating  the  whole  power  of  the  country  in  the  hands  of  a  single 
ruler.  Its  Alpha  is  ANARCHY,  and  its  Omega  DESPOT 
ISM.  It  addresses  itself  to  the  worst  passions  of  the  least  in 
formed  portion  of  the  people  ; — denounces  the  most  valuable 
and  salutary  institutions  as  intolerably  oppressive,  reviles  the 
possessors  of  property,  talents,  virtue,  every  thing  that  gives 
distinction  and  influence  in  society,  as  tyrants  and  aristocrats; 
— and  when  by  these  delusive  and  maddening  appeals  it  has 
brought  the  people  to  acts  of  open  violence,  and  broken  down 
the  existing  forms  of  government,  it  erects  upon  their  ruins  a 
throne  for  the  boldest  pretender,  commonly  some  daring  and 
reckless  military  chieftain,  who  happens  to  be  at  hand  at  the  prop 
er  moment  to  take  possession  of  it.  This  spirit  was  long  ago  de 
nounced  by  the  great  English  apostle  of  the  Rights  of  Man,  un 
der  the  name  of  LICENSE. 

License  they  mean  when  they  cry  Liberty  ; 

For  who  means  that,  must  first  mean  wise  and  good. 

It  is  a  sort  of  political  disease,  naturally  incident  to  free  gov 
ernments,  because  it  is  the  result  of  the  excess  or  abuse  of  Lib 
erty.  It  has  repeatedly  frustrated  the  fairest  prospects  of  polit 
ical  improvement.  At  the  period  of  the  first  English  Revolu 
tion,  it  deluged  the  island  of  Great  Britain  in  blood,  and  sub 
stituted  for  a  well-regulated  and  orderly  commonwealth,  the 
reign  of  violence,  under  the  various  names  of  the  Long  Parlia 
ment,  Cromwell,  and  the  Stuarts.  In  France  it  engendered  the 
brood  of  political  and  military  agitators,  who  have  for  the  last 
half  century  kept  that  country,  and  to  a  considerable  extent  the 
whole  of  Europe,  in  a  state  of  uproar,  and  prevented  the  intro 
duction  of  the  liberal  constitutions  which  were  called  for  by  the 
improved  civilization  of  the  age.  In  this  country  we  have  oc 
casionally  seen  some  symptoms  of  it,  but  it  has  always  been 
promptly  checked  by  the  strong  good  sense  and  patriotic  feel 
ing  of  the  people;  and  although  under  a  concurrence  of  pecu 
liar  circumstances,  it  has  obtained  a  temporary  ascendancy  for 
the  last  three  years,  the  body  politic  is  evidently  too  healthy  to 
allow  it  to  prevail  for  a  very  long  time.  Already  we  see  in 
every  quarter  the  signs  "of  a  vigorous  and  general  reaction, 
which  is  destined,  we  trust,  within  a  few  weeks  to  expel  it  from 


76 

the  system,  and  to  prostrate  forever  the  imbecile  and  superan 
nuated  despot  who  has  been  put  forward  as  its  personal  repre 
sentative. 

In  this  political  disease,  wherever  it  has  occurred^  there  have 
been,  as  we  have  said,  two  distinct  tendencies — one  towards 
disorganization  and  anarchy,  the  other  towards  despotism  and  a 
concentration  of  the  whole  power  of  society  in  the  hands  of  a 
single  ruler.  The  former  is  generally  more  observable  in  the 
earlier  and  the  latter  in  the  later  stages  of  the  malady,  but  they 
exist  together,  and  develope  themselves  as  circumstances  hap 
pen  to  furnish  occasion.  Both  these  tendencies  have  been  dis 
tinctly  visible  in  the  operations  of  Jacksonism.  We  have  seen 
it  encouraging  the  encroachments  of  the  States  on  the  Federal 
Government,  denying  the  National  Legislature  all  their  most 
important  powers,  openly  defying  the  authority  of  the  Supreme 
Court,  and  encouraging  the  States  to  do  the  same;  endeavor 
ing,  in  a  word,  to  bring  back  the  present  Constitution  to  the 
imbecility  of  the  Old  Confederation.  We  have  seen  it  attempt 
ing  to  array  the  poor  against  the  rich,  denouncing  the  posses 
sion  of  property,  talents,  distinction  of  any  kind,  under  the 
name  of  aristocracy,  as  an  unpardonable  crime,  and  straining 
every  nerve  to  place  the  whole  political  influence  in  the  hands 
of  those,  who  for  want  of  education  and  good  moral  qualities, 
are  the  least  qualified  to  exercise  it.  Such  are  the  proofs  of 
the  disorganizing  and  anarchical  tendency  of  Jacksonism.  On 
the  other  hand,  we  see  but  too  plainly  in  the  violent  and  ar 
bitrary  conduct  of  the  chief,  and  in  the  servile  complaisance — 
the  insane  man-worship  of  his  flatterers — the  evidences  of  a 
tendency  to  strengthen  the  Executive  branch  of  the  Government, 
which,  if  appearances  were  in  other  respects  less  favorable  than 
they  are,  would  justly  excite  the  most  serious  alarm  for  the  per 
manence  of  our  institutions. 

We  have  had  occasion  in  the  preceding  essays  to  dwell  at 
considerable  length  upon  some  of  the  principal  measures  by 
which  the  party  have  attempted  to  disorganize  the  government, 
and  substitute  a  wild  anarchy  for  the  beautiful  and  admirable 
system  of  social  order  contained  in  the  Federal  Constitution. 
The  arbitrary  tendency  of  Jacksonism  is  not  less  worthy  of 
consideration.  Since  the  organization  of  the  "  Cabinet  im 
proper,"  and  especially  during  the  late  session  of  Congress,  it 
has  displayed  itself  almost  without  disguise.  In  the  appoint 
ment  of  Gwinn,  the  President  wrested  from  the  Senate  their 
constitutional  share  of  the  appointing  power,  and  if  this  case  is 
to  be  regarded  as  a  precedent,  has  taken  into  his  own  hands  the 
whole  of  that  most  important  branch  of  the  government.  He 


77 

arbitrarily  returned  the  bill  which  granted  interest  to  Maine  and 
Massachusetts  on  the  advances  they  had  made  during  the  war, 
while  he  approved  that  which  gave  the  same  allowance  to  South 
Carolina.  He  openly  claims  the  right  of  executing  or  not  execu 
ting,  at  discretion,  the  very  laws  which  he  has  himself  approved. 
He  declares  himself,  in  terms,  entirely  independent  of  the  Su 
preme  Court.  He  nullifies  of  his  own  mere  motion  a  whole 
series  of  solemn  treaties  concluded  with  the  Indian  tribes,  and 
the  Intercourse  Law,  which  makes  it  his  duty  to  sustain  these 
treaties,  if  necessary,  by  military  force.  He  does  in  fact  substan 
tially  what  his  own  caprice  happens  to  suggest,  without  the 
slightest  regard  to  the  letter  or  spirit  of  the  constitution. 

In  the  mean  time,  what  is  the  language  of  the  partizan  prints? 
Are  the  soi-disant  champions  of  State  Rights  arid  democracy 
alarmed  at  these  undisguised  and  almost  avowed  usurpations  of 
power  by  the  Federal  Executive?  Quite  the  contrary.  The 
persons  who  are  clamoring  most  loudly  against  the  encroach 
ments  of  the  Federal  Government,  and  the  influence  of  Aristo 
cracy,  are  the  same  who  justify  and  applaud  every  act  of  Gen 
eral  Jackson.  These  same  persons  are  constantly  loading  him 
with  the  grossest  and  most  fulsome  flattery.  Napoleon  at  the 
height  of  his  greatness  did  not  receive  more  abject  adulation 
than  is  daily  lavished  upon  the  imbecile  automaton  who  is 
now  the  nominal  head  of  our  Government.  The  Globe  tells 
us  that  he  was  BORN  TO  COMMAND.  The  Indiana  Times 
assures  us  that  he  takes  great  interest  in  the  welfare  of  his 
SUBJECTS.  Mr.  Van  Buren  thinks  that  the  GLORY  of 
acting  under  his  orders,  is  enough  to  satisfy  the  most  extrava 
gant  ambition.  Finally,  a  late  Ohio  paper,  after  inveighing 
severely  against  the  two  opposition  parties  for  having  had  the 
temerity  to  form  a  coalition  in  that  State,  as  they  have  done  else 
where  against  a  common  enemy,  remarks  that  u  a  republican 
form  of  government  is  quite  too  mild  and  lenient  "  for  such 
offenders,  and  that  "  the  despotic  laws  of  a  CROMWELL  and 
a  ROBESPIERRE  would  mete  out  no  more  than  justice  to 
such  a  combination  of  men  !  !  !  " 

The  meaning  of  this  seems  to  be  clear.  We  understand 
it  to  be,  that  if  the  party  cannot  retain  the  SPOILS  OF  VIC 
TORY  in  any  other  way,  they  will  be  fully  justified  in  abolish 
ing  the  present  republican  form  of  government,  and  investing 
the  man  who  was  BORN  TO  COMMAND,  with  the  dicta 
torial  authority  of  a  CROMWELL  or  a  ROBESPIERRE. 

Nor,  extravagant  as  it  may  appear  to  some,  do  we  consider 
the  apprehension  of  an  attempt  at  such  a  change  in  the  charac 
ter  of  the  Government,  as  by  any  means  chimerical.  Should 


78 

General  Jackson  be  re-elected,  it  can  scarcely  be  doubted 
that  the  troubles  in  the  Southern  States  will  assume,  under  his 
capricious  and  violent  management,  a  more  serious  shape  than 
they  now  wear,  and  it  is  altogether  probable  that  they  will  put  on 
the  form  of  actual  rebellion  against  the  Government.  In  that 
case,  the  President  will  be  called  upon  as  commander  in  chief 
of  the  army  to  suppress  the  insurrection.  The  movement  of 
troops  for  this  purpose  would  constitute  the  commencement  of 
a  CIVIL  WAR,  of  which  the  progress  and  conclusion  are 
beyond  the  reach  of  conjecture  or  prophecy.  We  only  know 
that  in  preceding  cases  of  the  same  description,  the  military 
commanders  who  have  acquired  distinction  and  influence,  have 
frequently  abused  it  for  the  purpose  of  usurping  an  arbitrary 
dominion  over  the  whole  or  a  part  of  their  fellow-citizens,  is 
there  any  thing  in  the  character  of  Gen.  Jackson  or  his  principal 
partizans,  which  should  lead  us  to  suppose  that  he  would  shrink 
from  making,  or  they  from  supporting  him  in  a  similar  attempt? 
Will  any  sober  man  undertake  to  say  that  he  should  consider 
the  tranquillity  of  the  country  as  perfectly  secure,  if  he  heard 
that  Jackson  was  returning  in  triumph  at  the  head  of  a  victori 
ous  army  from  a  successful  campaign  in  South  Carolina?  Is 
it  at  all  improbable  that  he  might  be  induced  to  employ  violent 
measures  against  the  Nullifiers,  when  moderate  and  legal  ones 
would  have  been  sufficient,  lor  the  express  purpose  of  obtain 
ing  a  pretence  for  developing  a  military  power,  to  be  after 
wards  employed  for  other  objects?  For  ourselves,  without 
intending  to  excite  unnecessary  alarm,  or  to  attach  undue  con 
sequence  to  contingent  evils,  we  are  yet  free  to  confess  that 
we  agree  entirely  in  the  sentiment  so  powerfully  expressed  by 
Mr.  Webster,  at  Worcester — that  the  greatest  danger  connect 
ed  with  Nullification  may  perhaps  after  all  result  from  meas 
ures  adopted  by  the  General  Government  for  its  suppression. 
Not  that  we  believe  that  an  attempt  of  the  kind  now  supposed 
could  possibly  succeed.  We  know  too  well  the  dauntless 
courage  and  unconquerable  spirit  of  liberty  that  distinguish 
our  countrymen,  to  imagine  that  any  portion  of  them  would 
ever  acquiesce  for  a  moment  in  a  violent  assumption  of  politi 
cal  power  by  a  military  leader.  The  granite  rocks  of  New 
England  would  stoop  from  their  deep  foundations  to  do  hom 
age  to  a  Usurper,  as  soon  as  the  hardy  and  noble-minded  men 
who  inhabit  them.  But  the  mere  attempt  would  be  the  signal 
for  internal  discord,  and  would  form  the  commencement  of  a 
series  of  troubles,  which,  however  it  might  terminate,  would 
destroy  the  tranquillity  and  prosperity  of  the  people  for  at  least 
one  generation — perhaps  forever. 


79 

Such  are  the  tendencies  and  spirit  of  Jacksonism. — ANAR 
CHY  and  social  disorganization  at  the  outset — Military  usur 
pation  and  DESPOTISM  at  the  close. — The  means  which 
the  party  employ  to  perpetuate  their  influence,  have  been  ad 
verted  to  in  detail,  from  time  to  time,  in  the  course  of  these  re 
marks,  and  may  be  here  briefly  recapitulated  in  a  few  words. 
They  are  principally  two. 

1 .  The  abuse  of  the   patronage  of  the  Government  for  the 
purpose  of  controlling  the  freedom  of  elections. 

2.  The  abuse  of  the  Press. 

1.  ABUSE  OF  PATRONAGE.  This,  our  readers  re 
collect,  was  charged  upon  the  preceding  Administration  by 
General  Jackson,  and  the  reform  of  this  supposed  abuse  was 
declared  by  himself  to  be  one  of  his  principal  objects  and  du 
ties.  The  charge,  as  made  by  him,  was  grossly  and  notoriously 
false.  During  the  administration  of  Mr.  Adams  there  had  been 
no  removals  from  office  for  political  opinions.  The  Secretary  of 
State  had  not  even  thought  it  worth  his  while  to  take  the  busi 
ness  of  publishing  the  laws  from  political  opponents,  for  the 
purpose  of  giving  it  to  political  friends.  Two  or  three  isolated 
cases  in  which  this  had  been  done  for  other  reasons,  were  the  only 
pretences  which  the  partizan  newspapers  could  find  for  the  fac 
tious  and  senseless  clamor,  which  they  raised  upon  this  subject. 
But  the  making  of  the  charge,  and  the  public  declaration  by 
Jackson  that  he  considered  the  reform  of  this  supposed  abuse 
as  one  of  his  principal  duties,  increased,  if  possible,  the  strength 
of  the  obligation  which  he  was  under  before,  to  keep  his  own 
conduct  in  this  respect  entirely  clear  of  reproach  and  suspi 
cion.  How  this  obligation  has  been  observed,  we  have  already 
seen.  It  had  been  given  out  beforehand,  by  his  partizans,  that 
Jackson  would  REWARD  HIS  FRIENDS  AND  PUN 
ISH  HIS  ENEMIES.  The  first  acts  of  his  administration 
were  a  general  sweep  from  office  of  all  the  functionaries,  high 
anfl  low,  who  were  not  his  partizans,  and  the  appointment  of 
others  who  were  so  to  take  their  places.  Finally,  it  has  been 
publicly  avowed  within  a  few  months  upon  the  floor  of  the 
Senate  of  the  United  States,  by  one  of  the  leaders  of  the  party, 
the  immediate  friend  of  Van  Buren,  and  his  candidate  for 
Governor  of  New  York,  that  it  is  perfectly  right  and  proper, 
that  the  offices  of  Government  should  be  distributed  by  the 
President  among  his  political  partizans,  as  the  SPOILS  OF 
VICTORY. — The  party  not  only  sacrifice  without  scruple 
all  regard  for  consistency  and  principle,  but  have  at  length 
lost  all  sense  of  shame,  and  openly  confess  and  triumph  in  their 
infamy. 


80 

The  subaltern  leaders  are  about  as  scrupulous  and  consist 
ent  as  the  principals.  Amos  Kendall,  for  example,  when  he 
entered  on  his  office  as  Fourth  Auditor  of  the  Treasury,  deemed 
it  an  abuse  of  the  patronage  of  Government,  for  the  purpose  of 
controlling  the  freedom  of  elections,  even  to  subscribe  for  a  po 
litical  newspaper,  and  actually  made  a  great  parade  about  stop 
ping  one  or  two  which,  as  he  said,  had  been  taken  at  the  public 
expense,  by  his  predecessor^  He  considered  it  his  duty  to  keep 
himself  aloof  from  politics,  and  attend  exclusively  to  the  busi 
ness  of  his  office.  From  the  tone  of  his  letter  to  the  editor  of 
the  Baltimore  Patriot,  one  would  have  supposed  that  he  would 
hardly  feel  himself  at  liberty  to  look  into  a  newspaper.  Not 
long  after  this  immaculate  and  scrupulous  patriot  became,  as 
he  has  been  ever  since,  and  is  now,  one  of  the  principal  writers 
in  the  Washington  Globe,  the  semi-official  organ  of  the  party, 
and  in  point  of  style  the  most  scurrilous  paper,  with  the  excep 
tion,  perhaps,  of  the  New  Hampshire  Patriot,  that  has  ever 
been  published  in  this  country.  This  is  not  all.  Within  a  few 
weeks,  this  very  Kendall,  whose  delicacy  would  not  permit  him 
to  subscribe  for  or  even  read  the  newspapers,  wrote  circular 
letters  under  the  frank  of  his  office,  to  his  correspondents 
throughout  the  Western  country,  for  the  purpose  of  urging 
them  to  make  all  possible  efforts  to  extend  the  circulation  of 
the  Extra  Globe.  The  letters  have  been  published,  and  are 
not  only  not  denied  but  openly  avowed  and  justified  by  their 
author,  who,  in  the  way  of  candor,  seems  to  have  taken  a  leaf 
out  of  the  book  of  Mr.  Senator  Marcy. 

So  much  for  the  consistency  and  purity  of  Jacksonism,  and 
so  much  for  the  reform  of  the  abuse  of"  bringing  the  patronage 
of  Government  into  conflict  with  the  purity  of  elections."  The 
degree  to  which  this  abuse  is  now  carried  by  the  Administration, 
and  the  extent  of  the  influence  which  they  exercise  by  means 
of  it,  are  apparent.  Consider  the  effect  in  the  Post  Office  only. 
It  has  been  calculated  that  the  whole  amount  of  the  salaries  paid 
to  Postmasters,  is  from  three  to  four  hundred  thousand  dollars, 
distributed  through  the  country  in  moderate  sums,  mostly  from 
a  hundred  to  a  thousand  dollars  each.  Notwithstanding  the 
honorable  resistance  made  by  Judge  McLean,  which  cost  him 
his  place,  the  principle  was  introduced  at  the  very  opening  of 
the  Administration  of  regarding  the  whole  of  this  immense  sum 
as  a  fund  for  maintaining  and  extending  the  influence  of  the 
party.  The  reward  and  punishment  principle  was  immediately 
applied  in  this  department  as  in  all  the  others.  The  conse 
quence  was,  that  the  party  now  possess  in  every  considerable 
city,  town  and  village  throughout  the  Union,  a  salaried  agent, 


81 

holding  his  place  on  the  tenure  of  party  fidelity,  invested  with 
the  franking  privilege,  and  with  the  official  inspection  and  su 
perintendence  of  the  whole  correspondence  of  the  people.  At 
this  moment,  every  Postmaster  in  the  country  is,  ex  officio,  an 
agent  for  the  Washington  Globe,  and  is  employing  the  machine 
ry  of  the  department,  as  far  as  he  is  able  to  control  it,  for  the 
purpose  of  extending  the  circulation  of  the  odious  tissue  of  ma 
lignity,  slander,  and  falsehood  which  is  issued  in  the  extra  num 
bers  of  that  journal. 

Does  not  every  one  feel  that  this  single  fact  is  enough  of  it 
self  to  vitiate  entirely  the  freedom  of  the  election?  If  with  all 
these  disadvantages  against  them  the  people  do  in  fact  succeed 
in  defeating  the  re-election  of  Jackson,  as  we  have  now  reason 
to  hope  and  believe  that  they  will,  it  will  undoubtedly  be  the 
strongest  proof  of  the  irresistible  effect  of  a  general  reaction  of 
feeling  against  notorious  and  avowed  political  profligacy,  which 
has  yet  been  furnished  in  the  history  of  this  or  perhaps  any 
other  country. 

2.  ABUSE  OF  THE  PRESS.  The  other  principal  means 
by  which  the  party  maintain,  as  it  was  also  the  principal  one 
by  which  they  acquired  their  ascendancy,  is  the  abuse  of  the 
Press.  We  have  more  than  once  adverted  particularly  to  this 
subject  in  the  preceding  chapters.  The  period  that  has  elapsed 
since  the  inauguration  of  President  Jackson  may  be  called  em 
phatically  the  REIGN  OF  SLANDER.  Never  before, 
perhaps,  has  a  case  occurred  in  the  history  of  the  civilized 
world,  in  which  the  laws  intended  for  the  protection  of  personal 
rights  have  been  so  openly  and  systematically  set  at  defiance, 
and  have  proved  in  practice  so  entirely  inadequate  to  their  ob 
ject.  A  hundred  presses  make  it  their  daily  and  regular  em 
ployment  to  calumniate  every  individual  who  dares  to  make 
himself  in  any  way  conspicuous  as  an  opponent  of  Jackson. 
The  most  important  public  services,  the  purest  and  most  ele^- 
vated  private  character,  instead  of  affording  any  protection 
against  this  system  of  moral  assassination,  only  seem  to  invite 
and  direct  the  blow.  Presidents  Madison  and  Adams,  Chief 
Justice  Marshall,  Chancellor  Kent,  Bishop  White,  Messrs. 
Clay,  Sergeant,  Webster,  Frelinghuysen,  Wirt;  all  the  ablest, 
best  and  most  justly  respected  men  among  us,  are  daily  libelled 
in  the  foulest  and  grossest  manner.  Dark  insinuations, — direct 
and  open  falsehood — forgery — are  employed  in  turn  as  they  hap 
pen  to  be  thought  most  likely  to  effect  the  immediate  purpose. 
An  appeal  to  the  courts  of  justice  affords  no  redress.  The 
people,  by  listening  for  a  course  of  years  to  this  constant  strain 
of  calumny  and  scandal,  have  become  so  much  accustomed  to 
11 


82 

it,  that  they  have  in  some  degree  lost  their  sensibility  to  the 
value  of  character,  and  public  opinion  no  longer  lends  to  the 
law  on  this  subject  that  sanction,  without  which  all  laws  are  a 
dead  letter.  The  consequence  is,  that  few  attempts  are  made 
to  enforce  it,  and  the  inconvenience  of  being  constantly  ca 
lumniated  in  the  newspapers,  is  considered  as  a  sort  of  tax  which 
every  citizen  must  expect  to  pay,  who  devotes  himself  conscien 
tiously  and  firmly  to  the  service  of  his  country. 

The  extent  to  which  this  system  of  slander  is  carried,  has 
been  in  some  instances  curiously  and  almost  ludicrously  shown 
by  the  unconscious  admission  of  the  slanderer.  We  alluded 
in  one  of  our  preceding  essays,  to  an  article  which  appeared 
in  the  Washington  Globe  under  the  head  of  Political  Morality, 
in  which  Messrs.  Clay,  Webster,  and  their  principal  associates 
in  Congress  were  politely  described  as  rascals,  who  ought  to  be 
lashed  naked  through  the  country — they  having,  it  seems,  been 
guilty  of  the  enormous  offence  of  supporting,  in  the  regular  dis 
charge  of  their  official  duty,  the  bill  for  re-chartering  the  Bank. 
The  editor  of  the  Boston  Courier  copied  verbatim  a  great  part 
of  this  chapter,  with  such  change  of  language  as  made  it  apply 
to  Gen.  Jackson  and  his  principal  retainers.  Immediately  the 
New  York  Evening  Post,  and  the  other  leading  Jackson  presses 
raised  a  tremendous  outcry  against  the  indecency  of  the  oppo 
sition  press  !  ! ! 

Another  fact  evinces  singularly  enough,  the  utter  reck 
lessness  with  which  the  hired  dealers  carry  on  their  trade 
of  calumny.  About  a  year  ago  there  appeared  in  the  North 
American  Review,  an  article  upon  the  state  of  political  af 
fairs  in  England,  which  was  afterwards  republished  at  London 
under  the  title  of  the  Prospect  of  Reform,  and  was  received 
with  a  good  deal  of  attention.  Of  all  the  essays  that  have 
been  written  upon  the  subject,  this  was  perhaps  the  most 
democratic  in  its  tendency.  It  went  to  show  that  the  natural 
result  of  the  present  movements  would  be  a  subversion  of  the 
monarchical  and  aristocratical  features  of  the  British  constitu 
tion,  and  the  substitution  for  it  of  a  republican  government  on 
the  model  of  our  own.  This  result  was  spoken  of  as  not  only 
natural  but  desirable  and  expedient.  The  article  was  accord 
ingly  quoted  by  the  opponents  of  reform  in  Parliament,  and  in 
the  journals,  as  containing  an  admission,  by  the  friends  of  the 
measure,  that  such  were  its  tendency  and  probable  results. 
One  would  hardly  have  supposed  that  the  publication  of  the 
most  democratic  article  that  had  appeared  upon  this  question 
would  be  regarded  as  a  proof  of  aristocracy.  Such  however 
was  the  fact.  No  sooner  did  the  Jackson  editors  perceive  that 


83 

the  article  had  been  quoted  by  the  British  Tories,  than,  without 
stopping  to  ascertain  the  purpose,  or  to  read  the  paper,  they 
forthwith  denounced  the  Review  as  aristocratic,  and  declared 
that  the  proprietors  were  in  the  pay  of  the  British  aristocracy. 
If  Satan  should  quote  Scripture  for  his  purpose,  Scripture  would 
no  doubt  become  in  the  opinion  of  these  writers  a  very  diabol 
ical  matter. 

Forgery,  as  we  have  said,  is  one  of  their  habitual  instru 
ments.  The  readers  of  this  journal  have  within  the  last  week 
had  occasion  to  notice  the  exposure  of  a  most  base  and  fla 
grant  attempt  of  this  kind,  by  Mr.  Jeremiah  Mason,  lately  a 
distinguished  Senator  in  Congress  from  New  Hampshire.  But 
we  have  neither  space  nor  inclination  to  enlarge  any  further 
upon  the  details  of  this  disgusting  topic. 

If  in  any  considerable  town  or  village  in  this  country  it  were 
suddenly  discovered  that  there  was  a  building  which  was  em 
ployed  as  the  rendezvous  of  a  gang  of  miscreants,  who  habitually 
sallied  out  from  it,  to  attack  the  persons  and  plunder  the  prop 
erty  of  the  inhabitants,  what  would  be  the  consequence?  The 
whole  community  would  be  in  an  uproar: — all  ordinary  business 
would  be  suspended: — every  active  and  patriotic  citizen  would 
consider  his  person,  his  time,  his  labor,  all  his  means  and 
faculties  as  in  requisition  for  the  public  service,  until  the 
nuisance  should  be  abated.  At  the  present  moment,  there  are  in 
every  considerable  city  and  village  in  the  Union  one  or  more 
buildings  employed  as  the  rendezvous  of  a  company  of  persons 
who  make  it  their  daily  and  habitual  business  to  attack  the 
citizens  in  their  reputations — a  possession  far  more  dear  to 
every  honorable  man  than  his  person  or  his  purse.  These 
companies  of  calumniators  are  banded  together  and  form  an 
association  that  pervades  the  whole  Union.  Encouraged  by 
the  criminal  toleration  of.the  public,  they  have  the  boldness  to 
call  themselves  a  political  party — they  nominate  candidates  for 
public  offices.  At  the  last  election  they  actually  succeeded  in 
choosing  a  President  of  the  United  States.  Andrew  Jackson 
is  the  personal  representative  of  this  confederacy,  and  the  pe 
riod  of  his  administration  may,  as  we  have  said,  be  justly  de 
scribed,  and  will  be  known  in  the  history  of  the  country  as  the 
REIGN  OF  SLANDER. 

What  then  is  the  duty  under  such  circumstances  of  well- 
meaning  citizens?  Is  a  state  of  public  opinion,  which  tolerates 
the  open  invasion  of  private  rights,  of  the  most  important  and 
essential  character,  sound  and  healthy?  Are  the  people  inno 
cent  in  this  matter  ?  No.  We  have  already  said,  and  we  re 
peat  that  the  toleration  of  calumny  and  slander  is  the 


84 

crying   sin   of  the   nation.      IT  MUST  BE  REFORMED. 

The  Press  must  be  purified,  or  the  country  is  lost.     Whatever 
may  be  the  result  of  the   present  contest;    whether  we  are, 
doomed  to  endure  for  another  four  years  the  sway  of  Jackson, 
or  whether  we  succeed  in  placing  the  Government  in  the  hands 
of  upright  and  patriotic  men,  it  is  equally  the  bounden  and  im 
perative  duty  of  the  real  friends  of  the  country  to  strike  at  the 
root  of  the  evil,  by  reforming  the  existing  abuses  of  the  Press. 
Let  it  be  understood  that  character  is   not  to  be  outraged  with 
impunity,  any  more  than  person  or  property.     Let  it  be  under 
stood  that  the  slanderer  is  to  suffer  in  his  person  and  property 
the   appropriate  legal  punishment  for   slander,  and   that   this 
is  to  take  place  steadily,  uniformly,  regularly,  in  every  instance 
until  the  plague  is  stayed.     Let  citizens  of  weight,   influence 
and  principle,  those  who  take  the  lead  with  so  much  honor  and 
success  in  other  philanthropic   and   patriotic   enterprises,  put 
their  hands  to  this  great  work,  and  it  may   easily  be  done.     If 
it  be  not,  we   shall    have  no  security,  should  we   even  put  a 
temporary  period  to  the  present  misrule,  against  the  early  re 
currence  of  a  similar  one,  and  the  standard  of  civilization  will 
be  gradually  degraded,  until  the  country   will  no  longer  be   a 
suitable   residence   for   men   of  correct  feelings   and  upright 
character. 

Such  are  the  two  principal  means  by  which  the  Administra 
tion  endeavor  to  maintain  their  influence — the  abuse  of  patron 
age,  and  the  abuse  of  the  press. — There  is  yet  a  third,  more 
odious  and  alarming  than  either  of  these;  too  revolting  to  be 
long  dwelt  upon,  but  which  ought  not  to  be  wholly  passed 
over  in  a  view  of  the  conduct  of  our  present  rulers,  and  that 

3.  PERSONAL  INTIMIDATION.— We  have  said  that  the 

period  which  has  elapsed  since  the  usurpation  of  Jackson  might 
be  called  with  propriety  the  REIGN  OF  SLANDER:— the  last 
year  has  been,  without  a  metaphor,  and  in  the  direct  and  literal 
meaning  of  the  term — especially  at  the  seat  of  Government — 
the  REIGN  OF  TERROR.  It  was  predicted,  by  Mr.  Sena 
tor  Benton,  long  before  the  election  of  General  Jackson,  that 
if  he  were  ever  made  President,  the  Representatives  of  the 
People  would  be  compelled  in  self-defence  to  go  armed.  The 
prediction  has  been  verified  to  the  letter.  During  the  last 
session  of  Congress,  no  member  who  dared  to  lift  up  his  voice 
with  freedom  against  the  abuses  of  the  Government,  felt  himself 
secure  for  a  day  from  personal  violence.  One  was  actually 
assaulted  for  words  spoken  in  debate,  and  on  appealing  for 
redress  to  the  House  of  Representatives,  obtained  from  the 


85 

party  majority  a  mockery  of  justice  that  rendered  the  injury 
still  more   galling  and  outrageous.     Another  member  was  at 
tacked  upon  the  steps  of  the  Capitol,  and  only  succeeded  by 
superior  physical  strength  and  dexterity  in  saving  his  life  from 
the  most  imminent  peril.     So  notorious  was  the   countenance 
given  to  these  outrages  by  the  party  majority,  that  Mr.  Arnold 
did  not  even  think  it  worth  his  while  to  lay  his  case   before  - 
the   House.     When  a  third  member  who  had  been  challenged 
for  words  spoken   in  debate   appealed   for  protection  to   the 
House,  the  party  majority  coolly  passed  to  the  order  of  the 
day.    In  a  fourth  case,  when  a  member  was  personally  outraged 
on  the  floor  of  the  House,  the  matter  was   passed  over  without 
the  least  notice.     Towards  the  close  of  the  session,  the  seat  of 
Government  became  in  a  word  a  sort  of  bear-garden: — challen 
ges,  duels  and  personal  assaults,  were  the   order  of  the  day: — 
bludgeons,  sword-canes,  and  pistols,  had  taken  the  place  of  all 
other  arguments.   In  the  mean  time,  the  President,  who,  to  use 
his  own  language,  knows  how  '  to  look  with  complacency  on 
blood  and  carnage  ' — heard  with  apparent   satisfaction  the  re 
port  of  these   proceedings,   and  coolly  remarked  that   a  FEW 
MORE  INSTANCES  OF  THIS  KIND  WOULD  TEACH 
THE    MEMBERS    OF    CONGRESS    TO    BE    MORE 
GUARDED  IN  THEIR  EXPRESSIONS.      If  the  People 
are  as  intelligent  as  we  believe  them  to  be,  it  will  not  require 
a  few  more  instances,  nor  a  few  more  speeches  of  this  kind  to 
teach  them, — however  they  may  differ  in  opinion  upon  some 
other  questions, — who  ought  NOT  to  be  President  of  the  Uni 
ted  States. 

We  have  now  completed,  according  to  our  feeble  ability,  the 
task,  which,  with  much  reluctance  and  under  a  strong  sense  of 
public  duty,  we  had  imposed  upon  ourselves.  No  individual  can 
be  more  strongly  impressed  than  we  are  with  the  importance  of 
maintaining  social  order,  and,  as  one  of  the  means  for  effect 
ing  this  end,  of  giving,  on  suitable  occasions,  a  fair  and  candid 
support  to  the  persons  who  are  invested,  for  the  time  being, 
with  the  administration  of  the  Government.  But  when  these 
very  persons,  the  selected  and  sworn  guardians  of  social  order, 
are  themselves  its  principal  enemies,  and  employ  their  official 
influence  to  break  down  the  institutions  upon  which  its  preser 
vation  chiefly  depends,  it  then  becomes  the  bounden  duty  of 
every  well-meaning  citizen  to  oppose  their  continuance  in 
power.  Towards  the  present  incumbent  in  the  chief  magistra 
cy  we  have  no  unfriendly  feelings,  excepting  such  as  have  been 
excited  by  his  conduct  in  the  administration.  Up  to  the  time 


86 

•^ 

of  his  election  to  the  Presidency,  we  had  entertained  a  more 
favorable  opinion  of  him  than  was  perhaps  common  among  ju 
dicious  men,  and  had  publicly  defended  some  of  his  proceed 
ings  which  were  considered  obnoxious  to  serious  objections, 
but  which  admitted,  as  we  thought,  a  better  construction. ' 
We  regarded  his  elevation  as  a  most  dangerous  experiment  ; 
but  we  indulged  a  hope  that  the  evil  might  not  turn  out  so 
great  as  was  generally  expected.  His  administration  has  not 
merely  disappointed  the  faint  hopes  of  doubtful  friends,  but 
more  than  realized  the  worst  apprehensions  of  his  worst  ene 
mies.  His  election  has  proved,  what  some  who  are  now  his 
strongest  political  partizans  foretold  that  it  would  be,  a  curse  to 
the  country;  and,  if  repeated  for  another  term,  will  in  all  proba 
bility  be  its  ruin.  We  have  made  such  feeble  efforts  as  lay  in 
our  power  to  avert  this  catastrophe.  We  are  aware  how  entire 
ly  ineffectual  any  thing  that  we  can  say  or  do  must  be  in  deter 
mining  the  political  movements  of  this  great  people;  but  if  the 
arguments  which  have  been  urged  in  these  remarks  shall  have 
made  an  impression  upon  the  minds  of  a  few  readers  only,  they 
may  not,  in  the  present  divided  state  of  the  country,  be  entirely 
without  some  practical  effect.  With  the  fullest  conviction  of 
their  justice  and  importance,  we  submit  them  to  the  consider 
ation  of  our  fellow-citizens,  of  whom  we  now  respectfully  take 
our  leave. 


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